Cleanthes 330 BC – 230 BC
Cleanthes of Assos was a Greek Stoic philosopher who succeeded Zeno of Citium as head of the Stoa around 262 BC. Originally a boxer who arrived in Athens with little money, he supported himself by drawing water at night while studying philosophy by day. He gave Stoicism a distinctively religious cast, celebrated in his surviving Hymn to Zeus, in which he identifies the divine with the ordering reason of the cosmos. His writings are otherwise lost, but his reformulations were carried forward by his pupil Chrysippus.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Greek
- Era
- Ancient
- Movements
- Stoicism, Hellenistic
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Cleanthes:
“Lead me, O Zeus, and thou Destiny, wherever your decrees have assigned me. I follow willingly; if I would not, I would still follow.”
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Attributed to Cleanthes:
“Nothing is done on earth without thee, O God.”
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Attributed to Cleanthes:
“Out of opposites thou hast wrought one harmony, and from things good and evil thou hast made the eternal reason of the universe.”
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Attributed to Cleanthes:
“Of all our possessions, the soul is the most precious; therefore, we should treat it with the greatest care.”
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Attributed to Cleanthes:
“The man who is just and good is happy, even on the rack.”