20 thinkers

The Stoic who wrote letters to a friend about anxiety and the shortness of life

The emperor who ruled an empire by day and wrote, each night, how to rule himself

The Stoic who was born a slave and taught freedom

The awakened one who saw the cause of suffering and taught its end

The philosopher of pleasure who shared bread with friends in his Garden and dissolved the fear of death

The inventor of the essay, who shut himself in a tower library and made himself the matter of his book

The free spirit who dreamed he was a butterfly and spoke of the usefulness of the useless

The sage of the Way: flow downward like water, and do not force things

The teacher who spent his life on learning, becoming a good person, and the duties between people

The great scholar of Joseon who guarded his mind with reverence (gyeong) and never stopped learning

The Joseon statesman and great teacher who urged people to set their will and strive for substance

The Silhak scholar who wrote five hundred volumes in eighteen years of exile, designing a nation for its people

The gadfly of Athens who asked, and asked again, until people thought for themselves

The master of the Lyceum who taught that happiness is an activity shaped by habit

The lens-grinder who proved, like geometry, how to turn passion into understanding

The philosopher of Königsberg who stood in awe of the starry heavens and the moral law within

The forerunner of existentialism who called anxiety the dizziness of freedom and demanded the single individual's decision

The pessimist philosopher who said life swings like a pendulum between pain and boredom

The philosopher with a hammer who cried out for self-overcoming and the love of fate

The great novelist who lost the meaning of life at the height of his glory and found an answer in the faith of peasants