Curated playlist
Enlightenment philosophers
- VoltaireThe line Voltaire is most quoted for was written in 1906, long after he died.
- Immanuel KantA Prussian king's censors forbade Immanuel Kant to speak publicly about religion. The philosopher answered in 1798.
- Johann Wolfgang von GoetheWhen French soldiers broke into Goethe's home in 1806, his companion Christiane Vulpius defended it.
- Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
- Denis DiderotJailed writer Denis Diderot annotated Paradise Lost with a toothpick and ink made from slate and wine.
- Friedrich SchillerFriedrich Schiller's tomb is now empty. On the 3rd of May 2008, DNA tests showed the skull in it was not his.
- Jean-Jacques RousseauRousseau refused a king's pension after Louis XV loved his opera. Friends were exasperated by his choice.
- René DescartesRené Descartes had three dreams in a heated room in 1619. He believed they revealed a new philosophy to him.
- John MiltonJohn Milton sold Paradise Lost for five pounds. The blind poet handed it to a publisher in April 1667.
- MontesquieuMontesquieu published The Spirit of Law anonymously in 1748, and the Church banned it in 1751.
- John LockeJohn Locke's phrase "long train of abuses" appears word for word in the Declaration of Independence.
- Baruch SpinozaBaruch Spinoza was expelled from his Jewish community at twenty-three, and it still refuses him back.
- David HumeDavid Hume said his first book "fell dead-born from the press." He wrote it in France by age twenty-eight.
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelHegel watched Napoleon ride out of Jena the day before the 1806 battle. The philosopher called him "this world-soul."
- Joseph PriestleyJoseph Priestley isolated oxygen but never accepted what it meant.
- Mary WollstonecraftMary Wollstonecraft died eleven days after giving birth to the daughter who would write Frankenstein.
- Adam SmithAdam Smith once walked straight into a tanning pit while talking about free trade.
- Christoph Martin WielandGoethe attacked Christoph Martin Wieland in a satire, and Wieland recommended it.
- Mikhail LomonosovMikhail Lomonosov sealed metals in glass vessels in 1756 and found their mass did not change.