Many philosophers have come and gone…1000’s since the time man began…but, for the most part the latter ones are just mere copies ( revisionists ) of earlier works…these 18 are an excellent starting point and even a good ending point…as most of what you will find in the works of others you will find within the ones here.

I realize that there are a few I am missing…who should be here…and those will be added accordingly.

Confucius: in around 551-479 BCE: Founder of the Ru School of Chinese thought: Confucius never claimed originality of his sayings but considered himself merely to be the vehicle to which old sayings were brought back into existence: his sayings are preserved in the book called the Analects ( however, it is debated whether or not any can be conclusively attributed to him )

Anaxagoras: born in 500BC and died in 428BC: was a pupil of Anaximenes: has been credited with being the discoverer of various truths through his physical examination of the Universe ( eg. he was one of the first to speculate that the earth revolved around the sun, that the moon derived it’s light from the earth, and that the moon orbited the earth which was also round ): he was so involved in his studies that he was often criticized for his lack of involvement in public affairs: once when asked if he had no care for his native land he responded ‘  I am greatly concerned with my Fatherland ‘ and pointed to the sky.

Aristotle: born in 384BC and died in 322BC: was Plato’s most famous pupil: he spoke with a lisp: one of his most repeated sayings is ‘ What do people gain by telling lies? Just this, that when they speak the truth they are not believed. ‘: he studied under Plato for 17 years: he spent some time being the private tutor of Alexander the Great: in 335 he started his own school called the Lyceum.

Diogenes: born in 404BC and died in 323BC: was a native of Sinope: and was the son of a banker ( Hicesius ): one day he came across Antisthenes and attempted to become his pupil, Antisthenes would repulse him ( send him away ) but one day Diogenes, after Antisthenes stretched out his staff against him offered his head saying ‘ strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you having something to say ‘: there are many comedic sayings attributed to him such as one time at a contest he stood next to a target upon seeing a bad archer, when asked why he replied ‘ to avoid getting hit ‘: he is also attributed with being the first to say ‘ I am a citizen of the world ‘

Heraclitus: circa 6th century BC: he considered most people to be fools and sheep following blindly and banging around in the dark, most of his sayings reflect his disdain for what he saw as common stupidity eg. on sacrifice ‘ they vainly purify themselves with blood, just as if one who just stepped in mud was to wash his feet in mud. Any man who marked him doing thus, would deem him mad. ‘ and ‘ the mysteries practiced among men are unholy mysteries, and they pray to images, as if one were to talk with a man’s house, knowing not what gods or heroes are. ‘

Plato: born in 427BC and died in 347BC: was the son of Ariston and Perictione ( Potone ): his mother traced her roots back to Solon who traced his descent back to Neleus and Poseidon: a pupil of Socrates who wrote an extensive life of Socrates: Plato founded one of the earliest known organized schools in Western Civilization on a plot of land in the Grove of Hecademus or Academus, called the Academy: his most famous works aside from his recounts of his teacher was his Republic and the Laws.

Socrates: born in 469BC and died by execution ( hemlock ) in 399BC: was the son of a sculptor and a mid-wife: studied under Anaxagoras and Damon, and become a pupil of the physicist Archelous: Socrates was the first philosopher put to death: generally accepted as being responsible for introducing the conduct of life and ethics into philosophy: pupils included Plato, Xenophon, Artisthenes, Aeschines, Praedo, Euclides, and Aristippus.

Thales: circa 585BC: born on the date of the Eclipse, was the first to receive the name of Sage: Thales died of heat-stroke caused by advanced age while watching an athletic contest. His most famous proverb is still in use today in it’s original and adulterated terms  ‘ Know Thyself ‘

Voltaire: real name Francois Marie, he adopted the ‘ pen ‘ name Voltaire: born in 1694AD and died in 1778AD: he was imprisoned in the Bastille for eleven months for writing a scathing satire of the French government: he also insulted the powerful young nobleman, “Chevalier De Rohan,” and was given two options: imprisonment or exile. He chose exile and from 1726 to 1729 lived in England:

Plutarch of Chaeronea: circa 46 AD - 120 AD: he came from a wealthy family and traveled extensively: his most famous work likely being ‘ Parallel Lives ‘ in which he tries to compare the lives of Greeks and Romans illuminating their moral virtues and/or failings.

Xenophanes of Colophons: circa late 6th century BC: was a philosopher and a poet: one saying attributed him is ‘ Men seen to think that gods are born, that they wear clothes, that they have human voices and hands and faces. Now if cattle or horses or lions had hands, so that they could carve and make statues as men do, the horses would make gods like horses, and the cows gods like cows, and lions as lions, and they would give them such bodies as they themselves have. ‘

Xenophon: born in about 426BC and died in 354BC: his narrative was so sweet that he was referred to as the ‘ attic muse ‘; was a pupil of Socrates, a soldier, and an historian; the story goes he met Socrates in a narrow passage, Socrates blocked his path with a stick and would not let him pass until he answered two questions, first Socrates inquired ‘ where every kind of food was sold ‘ after receiving a reply he then asked ‘ and where do men become good and honorable? ‘ after receiving no reply he said ‘ follow me and learn ‘.

Zeno of Citium: born in 388BC and died in 261BC: he was often referred to as an Egyptian Vine-branch because he was very tall and skinny, flabby and delicate: he was a pupil of Crates: he preferred solitude to people, in fact he would do things such as beg just to repel people: one saying attributed to him when talking to a stripling who was talking nonsense is ‘ the reason we have two ears and only one mouth is so that we may listen the more and talk the less ‘

Zeno of Elea: circa 460BC: was the son of Teleutogoras but was adopted by Parmenides: he plotted to over-throw the tyrant Neorchus but was arrested, while being cross-examined about his accomplices he asked to whisper about certain people into Neorchus ear and laid hold of it with his teeth and would not let go until he was stabbed to death.

Pythagoras: born in circa 582-500BC: he divided a man’s life into four quarters ‘ twenty years a boy, twenty years a youth, twenty years a young man, twenty years an old man ‘ and these four periods correspond to the four seasons, the boy to spring, the youth to summer, the young man to fall, and the old man to winter: he was said to be the first to call the heaven the universe and the earth spherical.

Marcus Aurelius: born in 121AD and died in 180AD: was adopted by his uncle Emperor T. Antoninus Pius: and succeeded him as Emperor in March 161AD: but he willingly shared his throne with his half-brother Lucius Verus: in war with the Germans he caught a disease and died by the Danube and was succeeded by his son Commodus ( who was considered by some to have poisoned his father…not suffocated as in the movie Gladiator  )

Epictetus: circa 54AD - 118AD: was a crippled Greek slave of Phrygia during Nero’s reign: he was expelled from Rome with other philosophers by the Emperor Domitian in 89AD or 92AD: he started a school called  ‘ healing place for sick souls ‘: his pupil Flavius Arrianus preserved the words of his teacher: He is said to have lived into the reign of Hadrian.

Epicurus: born in 341BC and died in 271BC: one of his most famous sayings is ‘ one must not be so much in love with one explanation as to wrongly reject all others from ignorance of what can, and what cannot, be within human knowledge, and consequent longing to discover the undiscoverable ‘