Authors & Texts

All 124 voices in the anthology, A to Z, with the compiler's original introductions.

• Aeschylus

  Aeschylus (525-425 BCE) became the first Greek playwright to bring a second actor on to the stage, enabling him to exploit the endless possibilities of dialog. His one surviving..

• al Ma'arri

  Abu 'l'Ala Ahmad ibn 'Abdallah al-Ma'arri (973-1057 CE) was born in Ma'arra, south of Aleppo, and achieved fame as one of greatest of Arab poets. He created the Luzumiyyat, a..

• al-Biruni

  Al-biruni (973-1048 CE) was born in Khwarizm, the modern Khiva (Uzbekistan). He was well grounded in mathematics, physics, astronomy and ancient medicine. A meticulous observer of..

• Amenemope

  In ancient Egyptian literature Instructions in Wisdom take the form of a letter from a father to his son. They illustrate some of the humanistic values of ancient Egyptian..

• Asoka

  Asoka (c. 300-232 BCE) became in 270 BCE the ruler of an empire extending from Afghanistan to Bengal, and by further conquests unified nearly all of India. He converted to..

• Augustine

  Aurelius Augustine (354-430 CE), more widely known as St Augustine, was born in Thagaste in North Africa. His father had him trained as a rhetorician, which led to an extensive..

• Bacon

  Francis Bacon (1561-1626 CE) was born in London, England. In 1579 his father died, and Bacon, having only a small income, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1582. By 1619..

• Bantu

  A common folk-lore, with local variations, has spread along with the Bantu language across Sub-Saharan Africa. The traditional stories deal with village life, tribal mythology..

• Bedouin

  The Arabian Peninsula in the Sixth Century contained a rich tradition of oral poetry. In the Eighth Century, much of this poetry of earlier times was collected by one of the great..

• Ben Sirach

  Jesus the son of Sirach (about 200 BCE), a Jewish scholar, wrote down a compilation of the wisdom he had gathered during his life. He extolled the value of health over riches,..

• Bentham

  Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) sought to develop rational and humanistic reform of existing law. He called his philosophical basis for legislative reform "utilitarianism", which he..

• Bhagavad Gita

  The Bhagavad Gita (500 - 200 BCE) is part of the Mahabharata, which relates the struggles between the Kuru and Pandu dynasties of India. It starts with a battle over a few..

• Bilhana

  Bilhana or Chauras (born about 11th Century CE), a young Kashmiri poet, is the subject of a legend in which he and Vidya, the daughter of the local king, had a secret affair...

• Boccaccio

  Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375 CE) was born in Paris, France, to a Florentine father and a French mother. As Florentine scholar, poet, and literary critic, Boccaccio is best known..

• Bruni

  Leonardo Bruni (1369-1444 CE) was born at Arreszo and is representative of the third generation of humanist scholars in the Italian renaissance. He became secretary to the papal..

• Buddha

  The founder of Buddhism was the son of a prince of Shakyas, a principality located in the Himalayan foothills. He was born about 563 BCE with the family name of Gotama and the..

• Bushmen

  In 1870, the San and !Kun peoples (Bushmen) were nomadic hunter-gatherers found in the southern tip of southern Africa. These people may have lived in Africa for over 20,000..

• Carvaka

  The system of philosophy named after its founder, Carvaka, was put forward in the Brhaspati Sutra in India probably about 600 BCE. This text has not survived and, like similar..

• Cervantes

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( 1547-1616 CE) was born in Alcala de Henares, Spain. By the age of 22, he had contributed to a volume on Philipp II’ s third wife. He was wounded in..

• Chinese Odes

  Some of the earliest poetry expressing warm enjoyment of human activities— gathering food, hunting, farming, courtship and marriage, and festivals—is found in the Chinese Book of..

• Chong Ch'ol

  The Korean poet Chong Ch’ol (1536-1593 CE) mastered two classical forms of Korean poetry—the kasa and the sijo. The sijo extracts given here reflect Chong Ch’ol's career. Some..

• Chu Hsi

  Chu Hsi ( 1130-1200 CE) combined the traditional values of Confucianism with a metaphysical theory of humanity’s relation to the universe. He saw human nature as perfectly moral,..

• Chuang Tzu

  Chuang Tzu is believed to lived in the Fourth or Third Century BCE. His thought is contained in the 33 chapters that remain of the

• Comnena

  Anna Comnena (1083-1155?) was the daughter of Alexius I Comnenus, Emperor of Byzantium, and the author of a history of his life. As the first woman historian whose writings have..

• Comte

  Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was born at Montpellier, France. He studied at the Ecole Polytechnique for two years. His private studies followed the idea that true philosophy must be..

• Condorcet

  Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) was born at Ribemont, Picardy, France. He published books on the integral calculus and on the calculus of..

• Confucius

  Confucius (551-479 BCE) was born with the family name K'ung. At fifteen he bent his mind to learning, and continued to express a deep admiration for learning throughout his life...

• Copernicus

  Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1527 CE) was born Mikolaj Kopernik in Torun, Poland. He become canon of Frauenberg in 1512, but was not an ordained priest. His major work on the..

• Darwin

  Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) was born at Shrewsbury, England. Becoming interested in entomology and the emerging science of geology, he obtained the position of naturalist on..

• Dekanawidah

  Dekanawidah is regarded as the author of the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy that bound together five Indian Nations, probably early in the late Fifteenth or early Sixteenth..

• Democritus

  Democritus was born at Abdera, Thrace, sometime around 458 BCE. He was described as well traveled, probably visiting Babylon, Egypt, and Ethiopia, and perhaps India. He appears to..

• Descartes

  René Descartes (1596-1650] was born at La Haye, Touraine, France. After initial mathematical studies, he took up army service in various parts of Europe. In 1629, Descartes moved..

• Du Fu

  Du Fu (about 712-770 CE) was born in China and raised as a Confucian but failed to gain the government post he sought. He subsequently traveled throughout China, observing the..

• EC

  The UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights began to be translated into law in Europe when the Council of Europe issued a Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in..

• Egyptians

  Egyptian love poems recovered from pieces of papyrus and fragments of a vase date from the period between 1,500 and 1,000 BCE. Those parts that have survived are primarily praise..

• Elizabethans

  The Elizabethan poets (Sixteenth Century CE and shortly after) appeared in England during a period roughly contemporaneous with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603). By the..

• Epictetus

  Epictetus (about 50-130 CE), one of the most influential teachers of Stoicism, is believed to have been born a slave in Phyrigia, Asia Minor, and was given his freedom at perhaps..

• Epicurus

  Epicurus (342-270 BCE) was born in Samos. He probably started making his ideas public on the island of Lesbos in about 311 BCE. A few years later he went to Athens, where he..

• Erasmus

  Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536 CE), the illegitimate son of a priest, was born at either Rotterdam or Gouda in Holland. He was ordained a priest in 1492. He published an appeal for..

• Eskimos

  For Eskimos, a hard, stormy winter took up most of their lives, beginning in September and lasting into spring—the middle of June. In winter they had to contend with temperatures..

• EU

  The European Union (1993- ) issued a Charter of Fundamental Rights in 2000. This reaffirms that rights entail responsibilities and duties, and declares that human dignity is..

• Euclid

  Euclid (active around 300 BCE) a Greek educated in Athens formed a school in Alexandria where he produced a comprehensive treatise on mathematics, the Elements. These thirteen..

• Euripides

  Euripides (485-408 BCE) is often regarded as the first modern dramatist in the West. In his plays, the heroes of the classic Greek legends about the Trojan War become ordinary..

• Francis

• Galileo

  Galileo (1564-1642 CE) was born in Pisa. He was professor of mathematics at Padua between 1592 and 1610, when he used the newly invented telescope to observe mountains on the moon..

• Gandhi

  Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), later known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born in Porbandar, India, where he first went to school. He was the son of Kaba Gandhi, a Prime Minister in..

• Goethe

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was born in Frankfort-on-Main, Germany. His prolific output of plays, poetry and novels started before he attended the University of Leipzig..

• Gorgias

  Gorgias, a native of Leontini in Sicily, is thought to have lived between 483 and 375 BCE. In 427 he traveled to Athens as an ambassador to seek that city’s assistance against..

• Gracian

  Baltasar Gracián Y Morales (1601-1658) was born in Calatayud, Spain, and joined the Society of Jesus in 1619. Initially he wrote several books defining the qualities of the ideal..

• Greeks

  The works of many early Greek philosophers, orators, and poets (630-400 BCE) exist only as small fragments or analects. They nevertheless give us a glimpse of events in one of the..

• Grotius

  Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) or Huig van Groot was born in Delft, Holland and educated at Leiden, where he obtained the degree of Doctor of Law. In 1604 he wrote

• Hafiz

  Hafiz (1320-1391 CE) was the pen-name of Shams-ud din Mahommed, one of the greatest of Persian lyric poets. He was born at Shiraz, where he spent most of his life. Hafiz began as..

• Hammurabi

  The Babylonian King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE) succeeded in conquering neighboring states in Mesopotamia and establishing a stable empire. In part he achieved this stability by..

• Han Fei Tzu

  Han Fei Tzu (280-233 BCE), a prince of Han, was a leading philosopher of the Chinese legalist tradition whose written works gained favor with the king of Ch’in. The legalist..

• Hardy

  Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was born in a village near Dorchester, England. He began writing verse and essays in 1861 and had his first of many novels was published in 1871. After..

• Harvey

  William Harvey (1578-1657 CE) was born in Folkstone, England, and educated at Canterbury and Cambridge. Intending to enter the medical profession, he enrolled at Padua, Italy. He..

• Hebrew Scribes

  Hebrew scribes probably began writing down the text of the Hebrew Bible in the Seventh Century BCE. In it there are codes of conduct, ethical guidance, and laws that give us..

• Hippocrates

  Hippocrates is believed to have lived between 460 and 380 BCE. He was born on the Island of Cos, which contained a famous health resort and medical academy. It is not clear how..

• Hitomaro

  Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro (about 660- 708 CE) may have held court offices, but nothing is clearly known about them, although it appears that he functioned as a court poet. He..

• Homer

  Homer lived in the ninth century BCE, according to the Greek historian Herodotus, and is credited with the composition of two epic poems¾the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad..

• Ibn Khaldun

  Abu Zaid ibn Mahommed ibn Mahommed ibn Khaldun (1332-1406 CE) was born in Tunis. He studied various branches of Arabic learning and held high positions in Tunis, Granada, Fez, and..

• Ibn Khallikan

  Abu-l ‘Abbas Ahmad ibn Khallikan (1211-1282 CE) was born at Arbela, Iraq. His most famous work is The Obituaries of Eminent Men, often referred to as The Biographical Dictionary...

• Ifaluk

  Ifaluk is part of the Caroline Islands chain—dots of land scattered across 1800 miles of the deep Pacific. The Micronesians living there have physical characteristics and a..

• Jefferson

  Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was born at Shadwell, Virginia. He became a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1769, and entered the Continental Congress in 1775. His

• Jesus of Nazareth

  Jesus of Nazareth (4BCE-30 CE) may have been a recognizable type of Jewish prophet that healed the sick, performed exorcisms, engaged in prayer, sometimes taught, and was..

• Justinian

  Flavius Anicius Iustinianus (483-565 CE), otherwise known as Justinian, reigned as Roman Emperor at Constantinople from 527 until his death. Finding Roman law in a state of..

• Kamo no Chomei

  Kamo no Chomei (1153-1216 CE) was born in Kyoto, Japan, and began his career as a poet at the imperial court. He was later appointed to the Poetry Bureau, made up of Japan’s..

• Kenko

  Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350 CE), initially a Japanese court official, later emerged as a celebrated poet. Then at age 41 he became a Zen Buddhist monk. His subsequent

• Khayyam

  Omar Khaiyyam (1038-1123 CE) was born at Naishapur in Khorassan. He lived under the patronage of the Vizier of that time, Nizam-ul-Mulk, “busied,” said the Vizier, “in winning..

• Ki No

  Ki no Tsurayuki (884-946 CE) compiled the second great Anthology of Japanese poetry, the Kokinwakashiu, and also wrote a preface to it that became the basis for Japanese poetics...

• King

  Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was born in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. King was ordained in the Christian ministry in 1948 After receiving a Bachelor of Divinity degree, he gained..

• Koheleth

  Koheleth (Second Century BCE) is the sage whose collection of sayings is contained in the

• Lao Tzu

  Lao Tzu may have lived between 571 and 490 BCE. His existence and date are somewhat uncertain. Probably at some time in the second or third century BCE a collection of writings..

• Li Po

  Li Po (701-762 CE) was a native of Sezchaun, China. He left home to live in the mountains with a religious recluse and then took up the occupation of wandering poet. Throughout..

• Locke

  John Locke (1632-1704) was born England. He obtained a degree at Oxford and became confidential secretary to Lord Shaftesbury (at one time Chancellor of the Exchequer). Both fled..

• Lu Chi

  Lu Chi— or Lu Ji, or Lu Ki (261-303 CE) wrote an essay in rhyming prose about poetry and literature. The essay deals with the personal imagination and its activity in the process..

• Lucretius

  Titus Lucretius Carus (c 99-55 BCE) wrote the poem, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). Other than that, virtually nothing is known about Lucretius except for what can be..

• Machiavelli

  Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527 CE) was born in Florence. He entered public life in 1494 as a clerk, later becoming a secretary of Florence, exercising control over departments of..

• Magna Carta

  Magna Carta (The Great Charter) has became a significant document in the evolution of civil rights. It emerged from an agreement signed on June 15, 1215 CE, by King John of..

• Manett

  Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459 CE) was born in Florence. He served the Florentine Republic in various offices including an advisory council, diplomatic missions, and city..

• Maori

  The Maoris in New Zealand trace their ancestry back to a migration by canoes from Hawaiki, perhaps 800 to 1,000 years ago. They are Polynesians, and in coming to New Zealand they..

• Mencius

  Mang tsze (370-286 BCE), known to the West as Mencius, was born in the principality of Tsau, located in what is now the province of Shantung. Mencius argued that all men have a..

• Mo Tzu
• Montaigne

  Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592 CE) was born in the family chateau near Bordeaux, France, and was given special training by his father, who would not let him hear any other..

• More

  Thomas More (1478-1535 CE) was born in London, England. He learned Latin at St. Anthony’s School, Greek at Oxford, and the law at Lincoln’s Inn, London. He was a Catholic..

• Muhammad

  Muhammad al Mustafa (571-632) was born in Mecca. In his thirties, he began to spend a month each year practicing religious exercises on Mount Hira, outside Mecca. During a night..

• Newton

  Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was born in Lincolnshire, England. After graduating at Trinity College, Cambridge, he remained there to carry out optical and chemical experiments and..

• North American Indian

  For North American Indians the wisdom of the tribe was passed along orally for the most part. Even pictographs recording the history of migrations depended on an oral tradition of..

• Paine

  Thomas Paine (1737-1809 CE) was born in Thetford, Norfolk, England. He emigrated to America and in January, 1776, published

• Petrarch

  Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374 CE) was born in Italy. Being poor he became a priest; subsequently he gained the patronage of a Roman nobleman. With his first large scale work,..

• Po Chui

  Po Chü-i (772-846 CE), a Chinese poet and a government official, was one of the great writers of the Tang dynasty. The government posts he occupied included palace librarian,..

• Polybius

  Polybius (c.203-122 BCE) was born in Megalopolis, Arcadia, a Greek city that was an active member of the Achaean League. He subsequently became one of a thousand principal..

• Ptahhotep

  The Instruction of Ptahhotep to his son is a collection of maxims dealing with human relationships. For the most part, they touch on the humanistic virtues of kindness, justice,..

• Rabelais

  Francois Rabelais (about 1494-1553 CE) was born in Chinon, France. He was ordained a priest and embarked on a life of study in a Franciscan monastery. There he developed a strong..

• Rodó

  José Enrique Rodó (1872-1917) was born in Montevideo where he received his primary education but was otherwise largely self-taught. Rodó was a director of the Uruguay National..

• Sa'di

  Shaikh Sa’di Shirazi (about 1194-1292 CE), originally named Muslih-uddin, was born in Shiraz and studied at the Nizamiyya seat of learning in Baghdad. He remained there for about..

• Samue

  Samuel ha-Nagid (Samuel ha-Levi ben Joseph ibn Nagrela, 993-1056 CE) was born in Cordoba. He subsequently settled in Malaga, part of the Berber province of Granada. He was..

• Shakespeare

  William Shakespeare (1564-1616 CE) was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and emerged into prominence as a playwright when he wrote the three Henry IV plays in 1591 and 1592,..

• Sima Qian

  Sima Qian (about 145-90 BCE), or Ssi-ma Ch’ien, undertook the production of the first full history of China. This broad ranging work extending over 130 chapters includes annals,..

• Sin-leqe-unnini

  Sin-leqe-unnini, a scribe living in the Babylonian Kassite period (perhaps around 1600 BCE), authored the Standard Babylonian Version of

• Smith

  Adam Smith (1723-1790) was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. In 1751 he became Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, where he published a Theory of Moral..

• Socrates

  Socrates is said to have been born in 469 BCE and died in 399 BCE. Whether this information and his whole life are fictional creations or not is unclear. There are experts who..

• Solomon

  Solomon (975-931 BCE?), a king of Israel and Judah, is described in the Hebrew Bible as ruling over a vast empire. Archeological investigations have found no evidence of such an..

• Sor Juana

  Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695) was born at San Miguel de Nepantla, Mexico.

• Sume

  Our oldest written records come from the civilization of Sumer in what is now southern Iraq. Documents dating back to 3100 BCE have been found. A flourishing Sumerian literature..

• Sumer Poems

  Among the Sumerian inscriptions are love songs, often cast as dialogues between Dumiz (a vegetation god) and Inana (a Moon goddess), which obviously reflect the very human..

• Sun Yat-sen

  Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) was born in a village south of Canton, China. After a traditional Chinese education he transferred to missionary schools in Honolulu, Hawaii. He returned..

• Swiss Federation

  In the alpine region of what is now known as Switzerland, men from three small valleys agreed in 1291 to resist having outside judges imposed on them, to assume authority to..

• Tamil Poems

  These Tamil love poems may have been composed in southern India during the period 400-300 BCE. Like the Egyptian love poems they include praise and longing as their subjects, but..

• Thucydides

  The Greeks were probably the first in the West to draw up histories by inquiring into such information as may lead to the facts concerning the past. It is a process that requires..

• Tiruvalluvar

  Tiruvalluvar (First Century BCE) was a Tamil poet believed to have been born in Madras (now called Chennai) in south eastern India. He wrote in the Dravidian language, an older..

• Tolstoy

  Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) was born at his family’s estate at Yasnaya Polyana, central Russia. At Kazan University he studied law and oriental languages but left before..

• United Nations

  The United Nations (1945-) was formed after the end of World War II with the goal of saving future generations from such disasters. To this end the nations pledged themselves to..

• Valla

  Lorenzo Valla (1406 to 1457 CE) was born and educated in Rome, became a priest in 1431, and later gained a professorship in eloquence at Pavia. In 1440 he wrote a discourse on the..

• Vardhamana

  Vardhamana (599-527 BCE) promulgated the religious and philosophical system of the Jains in India. It is a system that seeks its basis in reason and observation of reality. As a..

• Vitruvius

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (active around 25 BEC) wrote ten books on architecture, whose dedication indicates that Augustus was his patron and suggests the time he was active. In his..

• Vives

  Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540 CE) was born in Valencia, Spain, into a Jewish family that was forced to convert to Christianity. He attended the University of Valencia and the Faculty..

• Voltaire

  Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778) was born in Paris, France. From the age of ten until seventeen he was educated at the College Louis-le-Grand, managed by the Jesuits...

• Wang Ch'ung

  Wang Ch’ung (27-97 CE) was born in China and became an independent thinker, associating with no specific school, although he made use of both Taoist and Confucian principles. In..

• Wang Yang-ming

  Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529 CE) was born near Yuehch'eng, China. He held that what he called the intuitive faculty is a characteristic possessed by all men and is the primary source..

• Wollstonecraft

  Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) also known by her married name of Godwin Wollstonecraft, was born in Hoxton, England. She and her three sisters had little opportunity for..

• Xunzi

  Xunzi, or Hsün-tzu, (298-238) BCE was a native of Zhao (Chao), China, becoming a well-recognized scholar and rising to official posts, including that of magistrate. As he lived..

• Yukaghir

  The poetry of the Yukaghir, a poor hunting tribe in eastern Siberia, consists of improvisations or verses handed down from narrator to narrator or from singer to singer through..

• Zitkala-Sa

  Zitkala-Ša ( 1876-1938), later known as Gertrude Bonnin, was born on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, South Dakota. She went to Earlham College, Indiana, where she won prizes for..