Zeno Quote on the Common: The Citizens of the World

Quote

"The wise are citizens of the world: the common reason makes all human beings kin, and the city of the wise is the city that has no walls — the cosmopolis." — Zeno of Citium, as reported in the doxographical tradition (3rd century BCE)

Author

Zeno of Citium (c. 334–262 BCE) was the founder of Stoicism, born in Cyprus and active in Athens from around 300 BCE. His Republic — the famous work that pictured the city of the wise — established the doctrine of the world-citizenship.

Source

The teaching is attributed to Zeno through the doxographical tradition, which preserves the account of his Republic and its doctrines. The fullest modern account is Malcolm Schofield's The Stoic Idea of the City (1991).

Context

The teaching belongs to the foundation of the Stoic cosmopolitanism. Zeno's Republic pictured the city of the wise: a city without walls, without temples, without courts, without money — the city governed by the common reason and the virtue of its citizens. The doctrine is the radical form of the Stoic claim that the human being is the citizen of the world: the reason is common, and the community of the reason is the community that has no walls.

Meaning

The quotation states the Stoic cosmopolitanism with complete clarity. "The wise are citizens of the world" — the citizenship: the citizenship of the wise is the world — the cosmopolis — not the city of the birth. "The common reason makes all human beings kin" — the kinship: the kinship is the reason — the common participation in the rational nature — and the kinship makes the family of the world. "The city of the wise is the city that has no walls" — the city: the city of the wise has no walls — no exclusions, no boundaries — because the membership is the reason, and the reason is common. "The cosmopolis" — the name: the world-city — the community of the reason that embraces all human beings. The quotation is the foundation of the Stoic cosmopolitanism, and it grounds the Stoic wisdom tradition's account of the world-citizenship.

Related Wisdom

The quotation belongs to the Stoic ethics of cosmopolitanism and the philosophy of connection. Its account of the city without walls connects to Epictetus's citizen of the world and to the wider wisdom tradition's teaching on the common humanity. The teaching is among the foundations of the Stoic wisdom tradition.