Birth
Born in Citium
Zeno was born in Citium, a Phoenician-Greek city on Cyprus, steeped in the commercial life of the eastern Mediterranean.
Words
“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”
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Zeno was a merchant from Cyprus who lost his cargo in a shipwreck near Athens. Stranded, he wandered into a bookshop, read about Socrates, and never left. He studied with the Cynics and the Academics, then began teaching in the Stoa Poikile (the Painted Porch) giving his school its name. Stoicism taught that virtue is the only true good, that the universe is rational, and that we should align our will with nature. It became the most influential philosophy of the ancient world.
