Zeno (334-262 B.C)

Stoicism is a school of philosophy founded in the early 3rd century BC in Athens by Zeno of Citium.

The Stoics thought that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgement, and that a person of “moral and intellectual perfection,” would not suffer such emotions. He was named as a sage.

Stoics were concerned with the active relationship between human freedom and the cosmic determinism and the belief that it is virtuous to maintain a will that is in accordance with nature.

Because of this, the Stoics presented their philosophy as ‘a way of life”. They thought that the best indication of an individual’s philosophy was not what a person said but the way he behaved.

Seneca and Epictetus – the later Stoics- emphasized that because “virtue is sufficient for happiness,” a sage was considered to be immune to misfortune.

This belief is very similar to the meaning of the phrase ‘stoic calm’. But the phrase does not include the “radical ethical” Stoic views that only a sage can be considered truly free, and that all moral corruptions are equally vicious.

From its founding, Stoic doctrine was a popular and durable philosophy in Greece and Roman empire, until the closing of all philosophy schools in 529 AD since their pagan characters were at odds with the Christian faith.

The word “stoic” commonly refers to someone indifferent to pain, pleasure, grief, or joy. The modern usage as “person who represses feelings or endures patiently” was first cited as a noun in 1579, and as an adjective in 1596.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on Stoicism notes, “the sense of the English adjective ‘stoical’ is not utterly misleading with regard to its philosophical origins.”