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 5 Chemistry 6 Physics 5 Mathematics 14 Medicine & Health 7 Technology & Engineering 7 Psychology 2
Philosophy 46 History 11 Literature 37 Language & Linguistics 5 Arts 11
Anthropology & Culture 7 Sociology 7 Religion 11 Education 8 Politics 19
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141 thinkers
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Anthropology & Culture
Clifford Geertz
1926-2006 · United States
Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) was an American cultural anthropologist and one of the most influential social scientists of the twentieth century. He was born in San…
Research skills Critical thinking Cultural heritage and identity Storytelling and narrative +1
"Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs."
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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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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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Chemistry
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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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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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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Politics
Elinor Ostrom
1933-2012 · United States
Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012) was an American political economist. She was born in Los Angeles and grew up during the Great Depression, a period of severe…
Environmental thinking Citizenship Systems thinking Financial literacy +1
"A lot of models in economics assume that human beings are fundamentally selfish. But the evidence shows that many people…"
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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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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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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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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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Medicine & Health
Florence Nightingale
1820-1910 · England, United Kingdom
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was a British nurse, statistician, and public health reformer. She was born into a wealthy English family and received an unusually thorough…
Health literacy Research skills Scientific thinking Numeracy and mathematical thinking +1
"The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm."
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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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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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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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Philosophy
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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Philosophy
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1770-1831 · Germany
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher. He was the last of the great system-builders in Western philosophy. He was born on 27 August…
Critical thinking Research skills Ethical thinking Creative expression +1
"The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk."
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Literature
George Orwell
1903-1950 · England
George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, an English writer, journalist, and essayist. He is one of the most quoted writers of…
Critical thinking Ethical thinking Creative expression Research skills +1
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
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Mathematics
Grace Hopper
1906-1992 · United States
Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (1906-1992) was an American mathematician, computer scientist, and United States Navy rear admiral whose work on programming languages and compilers helped…
Scientific thinking Critical thinking Creative expression Research skills +1
"It is easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission."
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