Curated category
Philosophers of literature
- Voltaire"This is no time to make new enemies." Those words are attributed to Voltaire on his deathbed, when a priest urged him to renounce Satan.
- George OrwellGeorge Orwell did not exist on any birth certificate. The man behind the name was Eric Arthur Blair, born on the 25th of June 1903 in Motihari, in the Bengal…
- Immanuel KantImmanuel Kant lived so rigidly that his neighbors in Königsberg were said to set their watches by his daily walks. He was born Emanuel on the 22nd of April…
- AristotleAncient Greek scholars gave Aristotle a name reserved for one man: among medieval Muslim scholars he was "The First Teacher", and to Christians like Thomas…
- Johann Wolfgang von GoetheOn the 13th of October 1806, Napoleon's army poured into Weimar, and the least disciplined of the French soldiers, the so-called spoon guards, broke into the…
- Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the firebombing of Dresden by hiding in a meat locker three stories underground, surrounded by hanging cadavers.
- Denis DiderotDenis Diderot was born on the 5th of October 1713 in Langres, Champagne, the son of a cutler named Didier Diderot. He died on the 31st of July 1784, having…
- Friedrich SchillerFriedrich Schiller was born on the 10th of November 1759 in Marbach, in the Duchy of Württemberg, named after King Frederick the Great but called Fritz by…
- Jean-Jacques RousseauJean-Jacques Rousseau came into the world barely breathing. "I was born almost dying, they had little hope of saving me," he later wrote of his arrival in…
- Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Luis Borges once described his blindness as a gift wrapped in cruel irony. In a poem he wrote that God, with splendid irony, granted him books and…
- Leo TolstoyLeo Tolstoy spent the last hours of his life on a train, preaching love, non-violence, and Georgism to fellow passengers, before pneumonia stopped him at a…
- Victor HugoVictor Hugo died on the 22nd of May 1885, at 50 Avenue Victor Hugo in Paris. He was 83 years old, and he died of pneumonia.
- Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault was born on the 15th of October 1926 in Poitiers, France, into a family where a surgeon father expected his son to follow in his footsteps.
- Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase "suspension of disbelief" - and for much of his life, he seemed to be asking the world to practice it on his behalf.
- Philip K. DickPhilip K. Dick died on the 2nd of March 1982, in a Santa Ana hospital, having never seen the film that would make his name famous.
- Aldous HuxleyAldous Huxley died at 5:20 pm Pacific Standard Time on the 22nd of November 1963 - and almost nobody noticed. His death was overshadowed by the assassination…
- AverroesAverroes was born in Córdoba on the 14th of April 1126, into a family whose name was synonymous with legal authority. His grandfather had been the city's…
- Jacques LacanJacques Marie Émile Lacan, born on the 13th of April 1901 in Paris, became the most controversial psychoanalyst since Freud.
- Hubert DreyfusHubert Dreyfus walked into the RAND Corporation in 1964 with a commission that seemed routine: review the latest work in artificial intelligence.
- Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)Vladimir Solovyov was born in Moscow in 1853, the second son of one of Russia's most prominent historians, yet he spent his final days as what witnesses…