At a glance
- From
- Hierapolis
- Nationality
- Ancient Rome
Biography
The name turns up constantly wherever Stoic thinking is passed around, usually attached to a line about what is and is not within a person's control. The man behind it was a Greek philosopher who worked in the Stoic tradition, and the bare facts of his life are few but striking.
He was born into slavery, at Hierapolis in Phrygia. He later lived in Rome, and he stayed there until he was banished. The remainder of his life was spent at Nicopolis, in the north-west of Greece.
That is the whole of the reliable outline: slavery, Rome, exile, Nicopolis. What survives beyond it is the philosophy itself, which is why readers who encounter a fragment of it today are still meeting a Stoic voice rather than a biography.
He was born into slavery, at Hierapolis in Phrygia. He later lived in Rome, and he stayed there until he was banished. The remainder of his life was spent at Nicopolis, in the north-west of Greece.
That is the whole of the reliable outline: slavery, Rome, exile, Nicopolis. What survives beyond it is the philosophy itself, which is why readers who encounter a fragment of it today are still meeting a Stoic voice rather than a biography.
Quotes 10
“Circumstances do not make the man, they only reveal him to himself.”
“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.”
“Only the educated are free.”
“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
“No man is free who is not master of himself.”
“You become what you give your attention to.”
