Curated playlist
Natural law ethicists
- CiceroCicero's name comes from the Latin word for chickpea. He refused advice to drop it when he entered politics.
- Thomas AquinasThomas Aquinas's family held him prisoner for nearly a year. At nineteen he chose to join the Dominican preachers.
- Immanuel KantA Prussian king's censors forbade Immanuel Kant to speak publicly about religion. The philosopher answered in 1798.
- AristotleOnly around a third of Aristotle's original writings survive, and none was meant to be published.
- Augustine of HippoAugustine of Hippo once prayed, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."
- John LockeJohn Locke's phrase "long train of abuses" appears word for word in the Declaration of Independence.
- Ayn RandWhen Ayn Rand died in New York City on the 6th of March 1982, her funeral included a six-foot floral arrangement shaped like a dollar sign. The tribute suited a woman who had turned self-interest into a moral code. She was born Alisa…
- ErasmusErasmus, born to a priest and orphaned by plague, became the most read author of his age.
- Thomas HobbesThomas Hobbes, the English philosopher born in 1588 at Westport in Wiltshire, liked to say that his mother gave birth to twins: "myself and fear." He arrived early, because news had just reached the household that the Spanish Armada was…
- Edmund BurkeOn the 28th of December 1792, Edmund Burke rose to speak in the House of Commons during the debate on the Aliens Bill. He pulled a concealed dagger from his coat and threw it to the floor. France, he said, had placed an order for 3,000…
- Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de Tocqueville was sent to America to study prisons. He went far beyond that and wrote a book on democracy.