Great Thinkers

Meet the great minds whose ideas have shaped the world — philosophers, scientists, artists, leaders, and revolutionaries whose thinking still matters today.

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Literature
Aimé Césaire
1913-2008 · Martinique, Caribbean
Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) was a poet, playwright, and political thinker from Martinique, an island in the Caribbean that was, and still is, a French territory.…
Cultural heritage and identity Critical literacy Citizenship Ethical thinking +1
"A civilisation that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilisation."
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Philosophy
Antonio Gramsci
1891-1937 · Italy, Southern Europe
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher, journalist, and political organiser. He was born in Sardinia, the island off the coast of Italy, into…
Civic media and democracy Critical literacy Citizenship Media literacy +1
"All men are intellectuals, but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals."
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Economics
Ayn Rand
1905–1982 · St Petersburg, Russia / United States
Ayn Rand (1905–1982) was a Russian-American economist, novelist and philosopher. She was born Alisa Rosenbaum in St Petersburg, Russia, and lived through the Russian Revolution…
Critical thinking Critical literacy Collaboration
"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another…"
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History
Cheikh Anta Diop
1923–1986 · Senegal
Cheikh Anta Diop (1923–1986) was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and political thinker — one of the most wide-ranging and controversial African intellectuals of the…
Critical thinking Critical literacy Intercultural competence Resilience
"The African who has understood us is the one who, after reading our works, feels that a new element has…"
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Literature
Chinua Achebe
1930-2013 · Nigeria, West Africa
Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, critic, and professor. He was born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in Ogidi, in southeastern Nigeria, into an Igbo…
Storytelling and narrative Critical literacy Cultural heritage and identity Ethical thinking +1
"Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."
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Politics
Frantz Fanon
1925–1961 · Martinique / Algeria / West Africa
Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) was a political activist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and writer from Martinique, a French Caribbean island. He worked as a doctor in Algeria during…
Critical literacy Critical thinking Intercultural competence Resilience
"I am not a prisoner of History. I should not seek there for the meaning of my destiny."
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Literature
Frederick Douglass
c. 1818-1895 · United States
Frederick Douglass (c.1818-1895) was an American abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland, the son of an enslaved…
Citizenship Critical literacy Ethical thinking Storytelling and narrative +1
"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free."
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History
Howard Zinn
1922-2010 · United States
Howard Zinn (1922-2010) was an American historian, playwright, and activist. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish immigrant parents who worked in factories,…
Critical thinking Citizenship Research skills Critical literacy +1
"I thought it important to put back in the historical record the countless struggles of ordinary people who fought against…"
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Literature
James Baldwin
1924-1987 · United States
James Baldwin (1924-1987) was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, and activist. He was born in Harlem, New York, the eldest of nine children. His mother's…
Critical literacy Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Storytelling and narrative +1
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."
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Economics
John Maynard Keynes
1883–1946 · Cambridge, England
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) was a British economist whose ideas changed the way governments manage their economies. He grew up in Cambridge, England, studied mathematics…
Critical thinking Critical literacy Metacognition
"In the long run we are all dead."
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Philosophy
Kitaro Nishida
1870–1945 · Japan
Kitaro Nishida (1870–1945) was a Japanese philosopher and the founder of what is known as the Kyoto School — the first major tradition of Japanese…
Critical thinking Metacognition Intercultural competence Critical literacy
"At the base of our existence, there must be something that unifies the opposition of subject and object."
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Technology & Engineering
Marshall McLuhan
1911-1980 · Canada
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) was a Canadian media theorist. He was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and studied literature at the University of Manitoba and Cambridge University…
Media literacy Digital literacy Critical thinking Civic media and democracy +1
"The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium result…"
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Literature
Mary Wollstonecraft
1759–1797 · England, Britain
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) was a British writer, philosopher, and early advocate for women's rights. She grew up in poverty and educated herself by reading widely…
Critical thinking Critical literacy Intercultural competence Resilience
"I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves."
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Politics
Nadia Murad
born 1993 · Iraq
Nadia Murad (born 1993) is a Yazidi human rights activist from the Sinjar region of northern Iraq. In 2014, when she was twenty-one years old,…
Critical thinking Resilience Intercultural competence Critical literacy
"I want to be the last girl in the world with a story like mine."
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Physics
Narges Mohammadi
born 1972 · Iran
Narges Mohammadi (born 1972) is an Iranian physicist, journalist, and human rights activist. She is one of Iran's most prominent advocates for the abolition of…
Critical thinking Critical literacy Resilience Intercultural competence
"I will not stop. My voice will not be silenced."
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History
Natalie Zemon Davis
1928-present · United States / Canada
Natalie Zemon Davis (born 1928) is an American-Canadian historian. She was born in Detroit, Michigan, into a Jewish family, and studied history at Smith College,…
Research skills Critical thinking Storytelling and narrative Cultural heritage and identity +1
"What I offer you is in part my invention, but held tightly in check by the voices of the past."
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Literature
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
1938-present · Kenya, East Africa
Ngugi wa Thiong'o (born 1938) is a Kenyan writer, novelist, and thinker. He grew up during British colonial rule in Kenya and lived through the…
Cultural heritage and identity Storytelling and narrative Critical literacy Media literacy +1
"Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we come…"
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Literature
Pablo Neruda
1904–1973 · Chile
Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) was a Chilean poet and diplomat, widely regarded as the greatest Spanish-language poet of the 20th century and one of the most…
Critical thinking Critical literacy Resilience Intercultural competence
"They can cut all the flowers, but they cannot keep spring from coming."
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Education
Paulo Freire
1921–1997 · Brazil, Latin America
Paulo Freire (1921–1997) was a Brazilian educator and thinker. He grew up during a time of great poverty and saw how many poor people could…
Critical literacy Critical thinking Metacognition Resilience +1
"Education either functions as an instrument to bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom."
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Biology
Rachel Carson
1907-1964 · United States
Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist. She was born in rural Pennsylvania and developed a love of the natural world…
Environmental thinking Scientific thinking Critical literacy Citizenship +1
"In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is a story of the earth."
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Politics
Rigoberta Menchú
born 1959 · Guatemala, Central America
Rigoberta Menchú Tum (born 1959) is an indigenous Maya K'iche' woman from Guatemala and one of the most important human rights activists of the twentieth…
Citizenship Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Research skills +1
"I am still keeping secret what I think no-one should know. Not even anthropologists or intellectuals, no matter how many…"
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Business & Management
Sigmund Freud
1856–1939 · Austria / Czech Republic
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis — one of the most influential and contested intellectual movements of the 20th…
Critical thinking Metacognition Resilience Critical literacy
"The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind."
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Philosophy
Thomas Hobbes
1588–1679 · England, United Kingdom
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was an English philosopher who lived through one of the most turbulent periods in British history — the English Civil War, the…
Critical thinking Critical literacy Collaboration
"The life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
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Literature
Toni Morrison
1931-2019 · United States
Toni Morrison (1931-2019) was an American novelist, essayist, editor, and professor. She was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford in Lorain, Ohio, into a Black working-class family…
Storytelling and narrative Critical literacy Cultural heritage and identity Ethical thinking +1
"If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else."
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