What Would Machiavelli Do?
Niccolo Machiavelli was a 16th century Italian diplomat and political theorist, author of The Prince (Il Principe). His short treatise was published in 1532 and has forever secured his fame [or infamy] as the book is singularly responsible for bringing the word “Machiavellian” into usage as a pejorative word in relation social and political dynamics. The […]
Pygmalion
Pygmalion (Πυγμαλίων Pugmalíōn) is a legendary figure of Cyprus, most familiar from Ovid’s narrative poem Metamorphoses. He is a sculptor who falls in love with a statue he has carved. Having crafted the perfect woman, Pygmalion makes offerings to Aphrodite at her festival day, quietly wishing for a bride who would be “the living likeness of my ivory girl.” When he returns home, he […]
Prometheus Bound
Prometheus Bound is a 5th century BC Greek tragedy attributed to the playwright Aeschylus. It recounts the myth of Prometheus, a Titan who defies the gods and gives fire to mankind. Prometheus is famously subjected to perpetual punishment for this kindness, becoming a precursor to rebel heroes of literature and popular culture, who stand against tyranny and suffer […]
S. E. Hinton
Susan Eloise Hinton (born July 22, 1948) is an American writer best known for her young-adult novels which she wrote during high school. Hinton was 15 when she started writing her first novel, The Outsiders, and 18 years of age when the book was published. Hinton is a brilliant example to aspiring writers to not be inhibited by age or inexperience. […]
Baruch Spinoza – The Prince of Philosophers
Baruch Spinoza, born Benedito de Espinosa, 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677, was a Jewish-Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardi origin. His family moved to the Netherlands during the inquisition to escape persecution and he was raised in a Portuguese-Jewish community in Amsterdam. There he received a traditional Jewish education and developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible, the nature of free […]
Marcus Aurelius – Philosopher King
Marcus Aurelius (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, 121 – 180 AD) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180. He ruled with his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus, until his brother’s death in 169, and then with his son, Commodus, from 177 to 180. Aurelius was the last of the rulers traditionally known as the Five Good Emperors. He was a practitioner of Stoicism, acquiring the reputation of a philosopher […]
Why I am So Wise – Nietzsche
Why I Am So Wise is one of several chapter essays with ironic titles including ‘Why I am So Clever” and “Why I Write Such Good Books,” in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is [1908]. The book is the last original book written by philosopher before his death in 1900 and was published […]
Why I Write – George Orwell
In a short essay entitled, “Why I Write,” [1946] George Orwell outlines the four motivations that drive all writers. First, he states, is ‘sheer egotism.’ Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown ups who snubbed you in childhood etc. This condition is […]
The Alchemist
The Alchemist (O Alquimista) is a novel by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho which was first published in 1988. Originally written in Portuguese, it became an international bestseller translated into some 70 languages and selling over 65 million copies to date. Coelho wrote The Alchemist in only two weeks in 1987. He explained he was able to write at this pace […]
Herodotus of Halicarnassus
Herodotus [Ἡρόδοτος] was a Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus in the modern-day Turkey in the fifth century BC (c. 484–c. 425 BC). As a contemporary with Socrates, Euripedes and Aeschylus, he lived during what is known as the Golden Age of Greece. He is often referred to as “The Father of History”, because he broke from Homeric tradition of mythologising events and treated his historical subjects […]