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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Ethical thinking × Creative expression × Page 1 of 4

1815-1852 · England

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), usually known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician widely regarded as the author of the first published…

Scientific thinking Critical thinking Creative expression Research skills +1

"The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it…"

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1910-1998 · Japan

Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, and editor whose thirty completed feature films include some of the most influential works in the…

Creative expression Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Ethical thinking +1

"To be an artist means never to avert one's eyes."

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1912-1954 · United Kingdom

Alan Turing was an English mathematician, codebreaker, and founder of modern computer science. He was born in London on 23 June 1912. His father worked…

Critical thinking Problem solving Scientific thinking Creative expression +1

"We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done."

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Albert Einstein

1879-1955 · Germany / United States

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist. He is widely seen as the most influential scientist of the twentieth century. He was born on 14…

Scientific thinking Critical thinking Problem solving Creative expression +1

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

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1974-2025 · United States

Alice Wong was an American disability activist, writer, and editor. She founded the Disability Visibility Project, which gathered and amplified the stories of disabled people…

Creative expression Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Emotional intelligence +1

"Disability is so much more than pain, trauma and tragedy. There's creativity, adaptation, and talent that comes from living in…"

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1083 - c. 1153 · Byzantine Empire (Constantinople, modern Istanbul)

Anna Komnene was a Byzantine princess and historian. The Byzantine Empire was the eastern continuation of the Roman Empire. It survived for a thousand years…

Research skills Creative expression Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1

"Time, in its irresistible and ceaseless flow, carries off and submerges all that has come into being and plunges it…"

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1940-present · France

Annie Ernaux is a French writer. In 2022 she became the first French woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was born Annie…

Creative expression Cultural heritage and identity Ethical thinking Emotional intelligence +1

"I shall not say my father, my mother, my sister: I shall name them."

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Antoine Lavoisier

1743-1794 · France

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743-1794) was a French chemist whose systematic use of the balance to measure the weights of substances before and after chemical reactions…

Scientific thinking Research skills Critical thinking Creative expression +1

"Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed."

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c. 1640-1689 · England

Aphra Behn was an English writer. She is the first woman known to have earned her living by writing in English. Almost every fact about…

Creative expression Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Ethical thinking +1

"All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned…"

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1934-1992 · United States

Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was an American poet, essayist, teacher, and political activist whose work insisted on the interconnection of race, gender, sexuality, and class in…

Creative expression Ethical thinking Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1

"There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives."

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c. 45-c. 117 CE · China (Han dynasty)

Ban Zhao was a Chinese historian, poet, and teacher of the Eastern Han dynasty. She is the first known woman historian of China. She was…

Research skills Creative expression Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1

"Yet only to teach men and not to teach women — is this not ignoring the essential relationship between them?"

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Business & Management

1941-2010 · India / United States

Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad (1941-2010) was an Indian-American management scholar whose ideas about corporate strategy, core competence, and the business opportunity at the bottom of the…

Critical thinking Creative expression Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity +1

"The roots of competitive advantage are buried deep inside the corporation."

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1901-1989 · Trinidad and Tobago

Cyril Lionel Robert James was a Trinidadian historian, political thinker, novelist, and cricket writer. He is one of the most important intellectuals the Caribbean has…

Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Ethical thinking Creative expression +1

"What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?"

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Christine de Pizan

c. 1364-c. 1430 · Italy / France

Christine de Pizan was a medieval Italian-French writer. She is widely considered the first woman in Europe to make her living as a professional author.…

Creative expression Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Critical thinking +1

"Just the sight of this book made me wonder how it happened that so many different men have been so…"

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Christopher Hitchens

1949 - 2011 · United Kingdom (later United States)

Christopher Hitchens was a British-American journalist, essayist, and writer. He was one of the most famous public intellectuals of the late 20th and early 21st…

Creative expression Critical thinking Ethical thinking Research skills +1

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

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106-43 BCE · Roman Republic (Italy)

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman lawyer, statesman, philosopher, and writer. He is one of the most influential figures in the history of Western law…

Critical thinking Ethical thinking Creative expression Research skills +1

"The safety of the people shall be the highest law."

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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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Dorothy Hodgkin

1910-1994 · United Kingdom

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was an English chemist. She remains the only British woman ever to win a Nobel Prize in any of the sciences. She…

Scientific thinking Problem solving Research skills Ethical thinking +1

"I was captured for life by chemistry and by crystals."

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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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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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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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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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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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G.E.M. Anscombe

1919-2001 · England (born in Ireland)

Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe was a British philosopher. She was one of the most important philosophers writing in English in the 20th century. She was…

Critical thinking Ethical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Research skills +1

"For men to choose to kill the innocent as a means to their ends is always murder."

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