Philosophers

Diogenes of Sinope

Born around 412 BCE in the Black Sea port of Sinope, Diogenes was the quintessential Cynic philosopher of ancient Greece. He chose a large storage jar as his dwelling, rejected wealth, fame, and social convention, and lived a life of radical self-sufficiency. His anecdotes — carrying a lamp in daylight 'searching for a human being,' telling Alexander the Great to stop blocking his sunlight — symbolize the pursuit of an unadorned existence. His thoroughgoing philosophy of autarkeia (self-sufficiency) became a wellspring of Stoicism.

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