Chrysippus

PhilosophyStoicism

Chrysippus of Soli (c. 279–206 BCE) is one of the central figures of ancient Stoicism and the thinker who gave the school its most rigorous and systematic form. As the successor of Cleanthes at the head of the Stoic school in Athens, he was already regarded in antiquity as the true architect of Stoic doctrine. It was famously said that “without Chrysippus, there would be no Stoa.” Although almost all of his writings are lost, his influence is decisive: through him, Stoicism becomes a coherent philosophical system capable of uniting a view of the world, a theory of knowledge, and an ethics of the good life. Chrysippus understood philosophy as a discipline of rigor, in which human freedom does not consist in escaping the order of the world, but in understanding the necessity that runs through it and consenting to it through correct judgment. His thought profoundly shaped later Stoicism, from Seneca and Epictetus to Marcus Aurelius, and continues to represent Stoicism in its most demanding and intellectually ambitious form.

Thoughts (8)

Virtue follows nature as we live it

Living virtuously is equal to living in accordance with one's experience of the actual course of nature.

Chrysippus

as quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 182

Win without harming others

He who is running a race ought to endeavor and strive to the utmost of his ability to come off victor; but it is utterly wrong for him to trip up his competitor, or to push him aside. So in life it is not unfair for one to seek for himself what may accrue to his benefit; but it is not right to take it from another.

Chrysippus

as quoted in De Officiis by Cicero, III, 10

The universe is the home of the gods

We should infer in the case of a beautiful dwelling-place that it was built for its owners and not for mice; we ought, therefore, in the same way to regard the universe as the dwelling-place of the gods.

Chrysippus

as quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, III, 10

Don’t follow the crowd

If I had followed the multitude, I should not have studied philosophy.

Chrysippus

as quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, VII, 182

Willing what is fated

If I knew that it was fated for me to be sick, I would even wish for it; for the foot also, if it had intelligence, would volunteer to get muddy.

Chrysippus

as quoted by Epictetus, Discourses, II, 6.10

Destiny and the Human Spirit

Although it is true,
he says,
that all things are enforced and linked through fate by a certain necessary and primary rationale, nevertheless our minds’ own degree of regulation by fate depends on their peculiar quality.

For if our minds’ initial natural make-up is a healthy and beneficial one, all that external force exerted upon them as a result of fate slides over them fairly smoothly and without obstruction. But if they are coarse, ignorant, inept, and unsupported by education, then even if they are under little or no pressure from fated disadvantages, they still, through their own ineptitude and voluntary impulse, plunge themselves into continual wrongdoings and transgressions… Just as… if you push a stone cylinder on steeply sloping ground, you have produced the cause and beginning of its forward motion, but soon it rolls forward not because you are still making it do so, but because such are its form and smooth-rolling shape.

Chrysippus

Chrysippus as quoted by Gellius

The wise need nothing, the foolish lack everything

Wise people are in want of nothing, and yet need many things. On the other hand, nothing is needed by fools, for they do not understand how to use anything, but are in want of everything.

Chrysippus

as quoted in Moral Epistles by Seneca, III, 10

The universe is divine soul

The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul.

Chrysippus

as quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, I, 15