Zeno of Citium Quotes on Virtue
Zeno of Citium (c.334–c.262 BC) — the Phoenician founder of Stoicism who taught from the Painted Stoa (Stoa Poikile) in the Athenian agora from which the school took its name — gave Hellenistic philosophy its founding statement of virtue as the only good. The doctrines transmitted through Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and the doxographical tradition (none of Zeno’s own works survives) — the unity of the virtues, the indifference of all external goods, the identification of the good with virtue alone, and the parallel doctrine that the passions are diseases of the soul to be eradicated rather than moderated — articulate the distinctive Stoic alternative to the Aristotelian and Academic frameworks of the period. The framework shaped the entire subsequent Stoic tradition through the Roman period and supplied the philosophical resources of the early Christian ethical synthesis.
Quotes
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Attributed to Zeno of Citium:
“Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue.”
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“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”
As quoted in Diogenes Laërtius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers , vii. 23. | Variant translation: The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less. -
“The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.”
As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius , in Lives of Eminent Philosophers : 'Zeno', 7.87 .: “This is why Zeno was the first (in his treatise On the Nature of Man ) to designate as the end ‘life in agreement with nature ’ (or living agreeably to nature)... | The "end" here means “the goal of life. -
Attributed to Zeno of Citium:
“Man conquers the world by conquering himself.”
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“No evil is honorable; but death is honorable; therefore death is not evil.”
As quoted in Epistles No. 82, by Seneca the Younger -
“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.”
As quoted in Epistulae morales ad Lucilium by Seneca , Epistle LXXXIII (trans. R. M. Gummere) -
“All the good are friends of one another.”
As quoted in Stromata , v. 14. by Clement of Alexandria -
“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.”
As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero , ii. 8.; iii. 9.