"Expliquer ton suicide ? Personne ne s'y est risqué. Tu ne craignais pas la mort. Tu l'as devancée, mais sans vraiment la désirer : comment désirer ce que l'on ne connaît pas ? Tu n'as pas nié la vie,…
A leading German philosopher and metaphysician of the 19th century, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) exerted an influence far beyond the hermetic world of philosophy, with adherents ranging from Richar…
Which are the logical tricks that will let you slip through the net when faced with awkward questions? How can you yourself use arguments to deflect difficult situations? Do you recognize all flaws in…
In the sixth century b.c.—twenty-five hundred years before Einstein—Heraclitus of Ephesus declared that energy is the essence of matter, that everything becom…
Written in 1906, Before Adam is a bit of a departure from London's other novels. Still an adventure novel, this one revolves around the dreams of a young boy, dreams that involve racial memories and t…
Twilight of the Idols presents a vivid, compressed overview of many of Nietzsche’s mature ideas, including his attack on Plato’s Socrates and on the Platonic legacy in Western philosophy and culture. …
The Praise of Folly - Erasmus - Translated by John Wilson In Praise of Folly, sometimes translated as In Praise of More, is an essay written in Latin in 1509 by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam and fir…
On a winter day the kind and humble shoemaker Simon finds a naked man in the street. He takes off his cloth coat, wraps it around the stranger and also gives him the extra pair of boots he was carryin…
The Apology of Socrates is Plato's version of the speech given by Socrates as he unsuccessfully defended himself in 399BCE against the charges of "corrupting the young, and by not believing in the god…
The Overcoat which is generally acknowledged as the finest of Gogol's memorable Saint Petersburg stories, is a tale of the absurd and misplaced obsessions.
Hailed by Nabokov as "the greatest artist that Russia has yet produced," Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) left his mark as a playwright, novelist, and writer of short stories. Gogol's works remain popular wi…
To Have Or to Be? is one of the seminal books of the second half of the 20th century. Nothing less than a manifesto for a new social and psychological revolution to save our threatened planet, this bo…
