Zeno of Citium
14 quotes
Biography
Zeno of Citium was a Hellenistic philosopher from Citium, Cyprus. He was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, which he taught in Athens from about 300 BC.
"if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like"
"Happiness is a good flow of life."
"No one entrusts a secret to a drunken man; but one will entrust a secret to a good man; therefore, the good man will not get drunk."
"(The end is) life in agreement with nature"
"Love is a God, who cooperates in securing the safety of the city."
"All the good are friends of one another."
"We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say."
"No evil is honorable; but death is honorable; therefore death is not evil."
"A bad feeling is a commotion of the mind repugnant to reason, and against nature."
"That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason; there is nothing more excellent than the universe, therefore the universe exercises reason."
"If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which gave forth rhythmical sounds? Clearly you would think in the same way that the art of music was possessed by plane trees. Why, then, seeing that the universe gives birth to beings that are animate and wise, should it not be considered animate and wise itself?"
"Man conquers the world by conquering himself"
"The best exponent of anarchist philosophy in ancient Greece was Zeno (342-267 or 270 B.C.), from Kition, the founder of the Stoic philosophy, who distinctly opposed his conception of a free community without government to the state-Utopia of Plato. He repudiated the omnipotence of the State, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual — remarking already that, while the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads man to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct — that of sociability. When men are reasonable enough to follow their natural instincts, they will unite across the frontiers and constitute the Cosmos. They will have no need of law-courts or police, will have no temples and no public worship, and use no money — free gifts taking the place of the exchanges. Unfortunately, the writings of Zeno have not reached us and are only known through fragmentary quotations. However, the fact that his very wording is similar to the wording now in use, shows how deeply is laid the tendency of human nature of which he was the mouthpiece."
"Well-being is attained little by little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself."