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Sunday, September 29, 2024

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 71


Now the Stoics say that the wise man is passionless, because he is not prone to fall into such infirmity. 

But they add that in another sense the term apathy is applied to the bad man, when, that is, it means that he is callous and relentless. 

Further, the wise man is said to be free from vanity; for he is indifferent to good or evil report. 

However, he is not alone in this, there being another who is also free from vanity, he who is ranged among the rash, and that is the bad man. 

Again, they tell us that all good men are austere or harsh, because they neither have dealings with pleasure themselves nor tolerate those who have. 

The term harsh is applied, however, to others as well, and in much the same sense as a wine is said to be harsh when it is employed medicinally and not for drinking at all. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.117 

IMAGE: Jan van Bijlert, Young Man Drinking a Glass of Wine (c. 1640) 



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