Diogenes Laërtius · fl. 3rd century CE
Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.87 — Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics
Translation by R. D. Hicks (1925)
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.87
Reported speech · Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics
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), which is the same as a virtuous life, virtue being the goal towards which nature guides us. So too Cleanthes in his treatise On Pleasure, as also Posidonius, and Hecato in his work On Ends. Again, living virtuously is equivalent to living in accordance with experience of the actual course of nature, as Chrysippus says in the first book of his De finibus; for our individual natures are parts of the nature of the whole universe.
Cite this passage
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.87 (on the Stoics), tr. R. D. Hicks (1925)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/lives-of-the-stoics/7.87
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, tr. R. D. Hicks (Loeb, 1925). Text: Perseus Digital Library (CC BY-SA 4.0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesZeno was the first to name the goal of life as living in agreement with nature, which means the same as living virtuously. Later Stoics agreed, adding that living virtuously also means living in line with how nature actually works, since each of us is a part of the whole universe.
Older wording
- “the end”
- — life's ultimate goal
- “life in agreement with nature”
- — living according to both human reason and the order of the universe
Themes and situations
- Nature and the cosmos
- Virtue and character
- Acceptance and fate
- Searching for meaning
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