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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Biology 3 Chemistry 5 Physics 4 Mathematics 15 Medicine & Health 5 Technology & Engineering 7 Psychology 1
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263 thinkers
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Critical thinking × Page 3 of 11
Language & Linguistics
Deborah Tannen
b. 1945 · United States
Deborah Tannen (born 1945) is an American linguist who has become one of the most widely read scholars of how people talk to each other.…
Critical thinking Emotional intelligence Cultural heritage and identity Research skills +1
"Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence."
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Religion
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1906-1945 · Germany
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and resister against Hitler. He was born in 1906 in Breslau, then in Germany, now Wrocław in…
Ethical thinking Critical thinking Creative expression Emotional intelligence +1
"Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace."
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Chemistry
Dmitri Mendeleev
1834-1907 · Russia
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907) was a Russian chemist who devised the periodic table of the elements, one of the most important organising schemes in the…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Research skills Cultural heritage and identity +1
"The elements, if arranged according to their atomic weights, exhibit an evident periodicity of properties."
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Religion
Dogen
1200-1253 · Japan (Soto Zen Buddhist)
Eihei Dogen (1200-1253) was a Japanese Buddhist monk whose writings founded the Soto school of Zen Buddhism and produced one of the most original bodies…
Critical thinking Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Creative expression +1
"To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To…"
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History
E.P. Thompson
1924-1993 · England, United Kingdom
E.P. Thompson (1924-1993) was a British historian, socialist activist, and peace campaigner. His full name was Edward Palmer Thompson. He was born in Oxford into…
Research skills Critical thinking Citizenship Cultural heritage and identity +1
"I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the obsolete hand-loom weaver, the utopian artisan and even…"
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Philosophy
Edmund Husserl
1859-1938 · Austria-Hungary / Germany
Edmund Husserl was a German philosopher. He is the founder of phenomenology, one of the most important schools of twentieth-century thought. He was born on…
Critical thinking Research skills Creative expression Ethical thinking +1
"To the things themselves."
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Anthropology & Culture
Eduardo Mondlane
1920-1969 · Mozambique (Portuguese East Africa)
Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane was a Mozambican anthropologist and revolutionary who founded FRELIMO, the movement that led Mozambique's independence struggle against Portugal. He was born in…
Ethical thinking Critical thinking Research skills Cultural heritage and identity +1
"We must build a society that is free from the exploitation of man by man."
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Literature
Edward Said
1935-2003 · Palestine / United States
Edward Wadie Said was a Palestinian-American literary critic, public intellectual, and music critic. He was one of the founders of postcolonial studies. He was born…
Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Ethical thinking Research skills +1
"The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories…"
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Mathematics
Emmy Noether
1882-1935 · Germany (later United States)
Emmy Noether was a German mathematician who changed how we understand algebra and physics. She was born in 1882 in Erlangen, Germany. Her father was…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Problem solving Creative expression +1
"My methods are really methods of working and thinking; this is why they have crept in everywhere anonymously."
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History
Eric Hobsbawm
1917 - 2012 · Egypt / Austria / United Kingdom
Eric Hobsbawm was a British historian and one of the most influential historians of the 20th century. He wrote about the rise of capitalism, the…
Research skills Critical thinking Creative expression Ethical thinking +1
"The dustbin of history is humanity's largest receptacle."
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Economics
Esther Duflo
1972-present · France / United States
Esther Duflo is a French-American economist. In 2019 she became, at age 46, the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic…
Scientific thinking Ethical thinking Research skills Problem solving +1
"It is not the magnitude of the problem that determines whether we can do something about it."
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Mathematics
Euclid
c. 325 BCE - c. 265 BCE · Alexandria, Egypt (Hellenistic Greek world)
Euclid was a Greek mathematician who lived in Alexandria, in Egypt, around 300 BCE. He is sometimes called the 'father of geometry'. We know almost…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Problem solving Research skills +1
"There is no royal road to geometry."
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Literature
Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim
c. 1933-2017 · Sudan
Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim was a Sudanese feminist, socialist, writer, and political leader. She was the first woman elected to the Sudanese parliament and, according to…
Ethical thinking Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Problem solving +1
"We did not want to become another copy of the Western woman. We wanted to be free as Sudanese women,…"
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Technology & Engineering
Fazlur Rahman Khan
1929-1982 · Bangladesh / United States
Fazlur Rahman Khan (1929-1982) was a Bangladeshi-American structural engineer whose innovations transformed how tall buildings are designed and made the modern generation of skyscrapers possible.…
Scientific thinking Creative expression Research skills Critical thinking +1
"The technical man must not be lost in his own technology. He must be able to appreciate life, and life…"
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Arts
Fela Kuti
1938-1997 · Nigeria
Fela Kuti was a Nigerian musician, bandleader, and political activist. He was born in 1938 in Abeokuta, a city in southwest Nigeria. He died in…
Creative expression Ethical thinking Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1
"Music is the weapon of the future."
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Language & Linguistics
Ferdinand de Saussure
1857-1913 · Switzerland
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) was a Swiss linguist whose ideas about language changed how people study not only language but many other fields as well.…
Critical thinking Scientific thinking Cultural heritage and identity Research skills +1
"In language there are only differences."
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Literature
Flora Tristan
1803-1844 · France and Peru
Flora Tristan was a French-Peruvian writer and activist. She was one of the earliest voices to link women's liberation with workers' liberation. She was born…
Critical thinking Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Research skills +1
"Workers, unite!"
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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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Anthropology & Culture
Franz Boas
1858-1942 · Germany / United States
Franz Boas (1858-1942) was a German-American anthropologist, widely regarded as the founder of modern cultural anthropology. He was born in Minden, Westphalia, into a secular…
Research skills Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Scientific thinking +1
"The mind of man is the same the world over."
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Medicine & Health
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
1947-present · France
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi is a French virologist. She is one of the two scientists who discovered the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the cause of AIDS. She…
Scientific thinking Research skills Critical thinking Ethical thinking +1
"We are not making science for science. We are making science for the benefit of humanity."
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Technology & Engineering
Frederick Winslow Taylor
1856-1915 · United States
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) was an American mechanical engineer whose systematic approach to industrial work created the school of thought known as scientific management and…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Research skills Ethical thinking +1
"In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first."
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Arts
Frida Kahlo
1907-1954 · Mexico
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (1907-1954) was a Mexican painter whose intensely personal and politically engaged work has made her one of the most…
Creative expression Cultural heritage and identity Ethical thinking Critical thinking +1
"I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best."
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Economics
Friedrich Hayek
1899-1992 · Austria
Friedrich Hayek was an economist and political thinker. He was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1899 and died in 1992. His full name was Friedrich…
Critical thinking Problem solving Ethical thinking Research skills +1
"The curious task of economics is to show men how little they really know about what they imagine they can…"
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Philosophy
Friedrich Nietzsche
1844-1900 · Germany
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher, cultural critic, and classicist. He was one of the most influential and most misunderstood thinkers of the 19th…
Critical thinking Creative expression Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1
"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."
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