Brian Randolph Greene is an American theoretical physicist and mathematician. Greene was a physics professor at Cornell University from 1990–1995, and has been a professor at Columbia University since…
Plato (Greek: Πλάτων), born Aristocles (c. 427 – 348 BC), was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of t…
Roman poet Virgil, also Vergil, originally Publius Vergilius Maro, composed the Aeneid, an epic telling after the sack of Troy of the wanderings of Aene…
Thucydides (c. 460 B.C. – c. 400 B.C.) (Greek Θουκυδίδης) was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens un…
Aristophanes (Greek: Αριστοφάνης; c. 446 – c. 386 BC) was an Ancient Greek comic playwright from Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually…
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternativel…
The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman and photographer.
Thomas Hobbes was a British philosopher and a seminal thinker of modern political philosophy. His ideas were marked by a mechanistic materialist foundation, a characterization of human nature based on…
Galileo Galilei was a Tuscan (Italian) physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescop…
Egyptian-born Roman philosopher Plotinus and his successors in the 3rd century at Alexandria founded and developed Neoplatonism, a philosophical system, which, based on Platonism with elements of myst…
The Prince, book of Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian political theorist, in 1513 describes an indifferent ruler to moral considerations with determination to achieve and to maintain power.
Plutarch (later named, upon becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus; AD 46–AD 120) was a Greek historian, biographer, and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He …
Lope de Vega was a Spanish Baroque playwright and poet. His reputation in the world of Spanish letters is second only to that of Cervantes, while the sheer volume of his literary output is unequaled: …
Johannes Kepler (German pronunciation: [ˈkɛplɐ]) was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, and key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution. He is best known for his eponymous law…
Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar and theologian of Italy and the most influential thinker of the medieval period, combined doctrine of Aristotle and elements of Neoplatonism, a sy…
Geocentric model of Greek astronomer and geographer Ptolemy, who flourished in 2nd century at Alexandria, for the universe dominated cosmological theory until the Renaissance.
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (28 October 1466 – 12 July 1536), known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theolo…
Lao Tzu (Chinese: 老子; pinyin: Lǎozǐ; Wade-Giles: Laosi; also Laozi, Lao Tse, Lao Tu, Lao-Tsu, Laotze, Laosi, Lao Zi, Laocius, Lao Ce, and other variations) was a mystic philosopher of ancient China, b…
From the death of Augustus in 14 Histories and Annals, greatest works of Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Roman public official, concern the period to Domitian in 96. …
Miguel de Cervantes y Cortinas, later Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His novel Don Quixote is often considered his magnum opus, as well as the first modern novel.
Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the story-teller, Boccaccio, and the poet, Petrarch, he forms…
Early church father and philosopher Saint Augustine served from 396 as the bishop of Hippo in present-day Algeria and through such writings as the autobiographical Confessions in 397 and the volum…
Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 BC – c. 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the epic philosophical poem "De Rerum Natura" about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and …
Dan Jones is a NYT bestselling author and broadcaster. His books, which include The Templars, Henry V, The Plantagenets and Powers & Thrones, have sold more than 2 million copies and are published in …
