Philosopher Quotes on Happiness
Happiness — eudaimonia in the ancient sources — is one of philosophy's oldest organizing concepts. Aristotle defined it as activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, the Epicureans identified it with stable pleasure and freedom from pain, and the Stoics tied it to inner consent to the order of nature. Modern utilitarians took aggregate happiness as the standard of right action, while critics from Kant onward argued that worth and happiness must be distinguished. The quotes below sample these competing accounts of what it is to live a happy life.
Eudaimonia — usually translated as flourishing — is the central concept of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle is careful to distinguish it from a feeling state: eudaimonia is not happiness in the modern English sense but the lifelong activity of the rational soul in accordance with virtue, exercised within a well-ordered political community and requiring some external goods. The doctrine has shaped every subsequent eudaimonist tradition in Western moral philosophy.
The Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics each adopted the vocabulary of eudaimonia while disagreeing on its content. For the Stoics, virtue alone is sufficient for happiness; external goods are indifferent. For the Epicureans, happiness consists in stable pleasure (ataraxia) — the absence of bodily pain and mental disturbance — achieved through moderate pleasure, friendship, and the dissolution of irrational fears. For the Pyrrhonian Skeptics, suspended judgment on contested questions produces the tranquility that constitutes the philosophical good life.
Modern utilitarianism took aggregate happiness — Bentham's quantitative summation of pleasures across all sentient beings — as the standard of right action. Mill humanized the framework with the qualitative distinction between higher and lower pleasures. Kant insisted that worth and happiness must be sharply distinguished: the morally worthy person merits happiness, but happiness itself is no part of moral worth. The recent Anglophone revival of virtue ethics — Anscombe, Foot, MacIntyre, Nussbaum — has returned to Aristotle's framework as an alternative to both utilitarian and Kantian accounts.
256 philosophers in this collection have quotes tagged with happiness, totalling 466 quotes.
Marcus Aurelius on Happiness
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“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
ἐν ὀλιγίστοις κεῖται τὸ εὐδαιμόνως βιῶσαι | VII, 67 -
“Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to refrain from all anger and passion... I have learned both shamefastness and manlike behaviour. Of my mother I have learned to be religious, and bountiful; and to forbear, not only to do, but to intend any evil; to content myself with a spare diet, and to fly all such excess as is incidental to great wealth.”
I, 1 -
“The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.”
Meditations, Book IX | IX, 16 -
“Know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them.”
Meditations, Book XII | τί λοιπὸν ἢ ἀπολαύειν τοῦ ζῆν συνάπτοντα ἄλλο ἐπ ἄλλῳ ἀγαθόν, ὥστε μηδὲ τὸ βραχύτατον διάστημα ἀπολείπειν; XII, 29 -
Attributed to Marcus Aurelius:
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
Cicero on Happiness
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“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, deerit nihil. -
“We should never take pleasure in causing pain to others, even to those who have wronged us, but rather strive to do good to all.”
Wikiquote -
“That which is most excellent, and is most to be desired by all happy, honest and healthy-minded men, is dignified leisure.”
Pro Publio Sestio ; Chapter XLV -
“Shortened Version: We think a happy life consists in tranquility of mind.”
De Natura Deorum–On the Nature of the Gods(45 BC) | Book I, section 6 -
Attributed to Cicero:
“While there's life, there's hope.”
Voltaire on Happiness
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“Let us cultivate our garden.”
Candide, closing line -
“L'homme doit être content, dit-on; mais de quoi?”
Man ought to be content, it is said; but with what? | Pensées, Remarques, et Observations de Voltaire; ouvrage posthume (1802) Posthumously published "Thoughts, remarks and observations" believed to be by Voltaire -
“Man ought to be content, it is said; but with what?”
L'homme doit être content, dit-on; mais de quoi? -
“If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.”
1730s | Letters on England , letter 6, "On the Presbyterians", trans. Leonard Tancock (Penguin Books, 1980) p. 41, published first in English in 1733 -
“Use, do not abuse; as the wise man commands. I flee Epictetus and Petronius alike. Neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.”
1730s | "Cinquième discours: sur la nature de plaisir", Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738)
Leo Tolstoy on Happiness
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“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему. -
“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.”
War and Peace(1865–1867; 1869) | Book IV, Ch. 11 -
“To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in undeserved sufferings.”
War and Peace(1865–1867; 1869) | Bk. XIV, ch. 15 -
“There is only one enduring happiness in life—to live for others.”
Family Happiness(1859) | Part 1, chapter 2 -
“He knew she was there by the joy and fear that overwhelmed his heart.”
Anna Karenina(1875–1877; 1878) | Pt. I, ch. 9
Julian of Norwich on Happiness
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“This is a Revelation of Love that Jesus Christ , our endless bliss, made in Sixteen Shewings, or Revelations particular. Of the which the First is of His precious crowning with thorns; and therewith was comprehended and specified the Trinity, with the Incarnation, and unity betwixt God and man's soul ; with many fair shewings of endless wisdom and teachings of love: in which all the Shewings that follow be grounded and oned.”
First lines -
“We shall suddenly be taken from all our pain and from all our woe, and of His Goodness we shall come up above, where we shall have our Lord Jesus for our meed and be fulfilled with joy and bliss in Heaven.”
Wikiquote -
“With this same cheer of mirth and joy our good Lord looked down on the right side and brought to my mind where our Lady stood in the time of His Passion; and said: Wilt thou see her?”
Chapter 25 -
“Because of this great, endless love that God hath to all Mankind, He maketh no disparting in love between the blessed Soul of Christ and the least soul that shall be saved.”
Chapter 54 -
“Now behoveth me to tell in what manner I saw sin deadly in the creatures which shall not die for sin, but live in the joy of God without end.”
Chapter 72
Epicurus on Happiness
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“It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly.”
Οὐκ ἔστιν ἡδέως ζῆν ἄνευ τοῦ φρονίμως καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως, οὐδὲ φρονίμως καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως ἄνευ τοῦ ἡδέως. ὅτῳ δὲ τοῦτο μὴ ὑπάρχει ἐξ οὗ ζῆν φρονίμως, καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως ὑπάρχει, οὐκ ἔστι τοῦτον ἡδέως ζῆν. -
“A happy and eternal being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; hence he is exempt from movements of anger and partiality, for every such movement implies weakness . (1)”
Sovereign Maxims | Variant translations: What is blessed and indestructible has no troubles itself, nor does it give trouble to anyone else, so that it is not affected by feelings of anger or gratitude. For all such thi -
“Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life , by far the most important is friendship . (28)”
Sovereign Maxims -
“Since it is every man's interest to be happy through the whole of life, it is the wisdom of every one to employ philosophy in the search of felicity without delay; and there cannot be a greater folly, than to be always beginning to live.”
Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers(Half-Hours with the Freethinkers) -
“This happy state can only be obtained by a prudent care of the body, and a steady government of the mind. The diseases of the body are to be prevented by temperance, or cured by medicine, or rendered tolerable by patience.”
Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers(Half-Hours with the Freethinkers)
Liezi on Happiness
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“To be truly happy and contented, you must let go of the idea of what it means to be happy or content. When you understand there is really nothing to be happy or sad about, then you will be truly contented.”
Wikiquote -
“Joy and sorrow, gain and loss, war and peace, good government and bad repeat themselves throughout history. Why live a hundred years to see the same things come and go?”
Passage 79:Everyone Must Die Sometime -
“When we are rich and famous and powerful, we do not want to die. On the other hand, if we are miserable and suffering, we want to die and leave it all. But can joy or misery last forever?”
Passage 70:The King Who Wanted to Live Forever -
“Someone with neither social status nor a reputation to uphold may be a freer and happier person. Why then work so hard to gain social recognition when it will only diminish your freedom and happiness?”
Passage 72:A Name is Nothing and Titles are Empty -
Attributed to Liezi:
“Those who dream of feasting awake to lamentation.”
Boethius on Happiness
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“In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune.”
Nam in omni adversitate fortunae infelicissimum est genus infortunii fuisse felicem. -
“Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content.”
The Consolation of Philosophy, Book II | Prose IV, line 18 -
“I see how happiness and misery lie inseparably in the deserts of good and bad men.”
The Consolation of Philosophy, Book IV | Prose V, line 1; translation by W.V. Cooper -
“Who hath so entire happiness that he is not in some part offended with the condition of his estate?”
The Consolation of Philosophy, Book II | Prose IV, line 12 -
“Alternate translation: How happy is mankind if the love that orders the stars above rules, too, in your hearts.”
The Consolation of Philosophy, Book II
Jeremy Bentham on Happiness
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“Priestley was the first (unless it was Beccaria ) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth — that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.”
Extracts from Bentham's Commonplace Book", in Collected Works , x, p. 142; He credits Priestley in his Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768) or Beccaria with inspiring his use of the phrase, often paraphrased as " The greatest good for the greatest number ", but the statement "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" actually originates with Francis Hutcheson , in his Inquiry c -
“Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains . And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul .”
Advice to a young girl (22 June 1830) -
“To what shall the character of utility be ascribed, if not to that which is a source of pleasure?”
Théorie des peines et des récompenses (1811); translation by Richard Smith, The Rationale of Reward , J. & H. L. Hunt, London, 1825, Bk. 3, Ch. 1 -
Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:
“It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.”
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Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:
“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.”
Shantideva on Happiness
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“In the spiritual energy that relieves The anguish of beings in misery and Places depressed beings in eternal joy I lift up my heart and rejoice.”
Wikiquote -
“In the ocean-like virtue of the Bodhimind That brings joy to all beings And in accomplishing the well-being of others, I lift up my heart and rejoice.”
Wikiquote -
“Suffering is transcended by total surrender And the mind attains to nirvana. As one day all must be given up, Why not dedicate it now to universal happiness?”
Wikiquote -
“Thus today in the presence of all awakened Ones I invite every living being to this festival Giving both immediate and lasting joy. May the gods and all others rejoice.”
Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra -
“May all those languishing in hell come now to perfect joy. And may the stooping animals be freed From fear of being preyed upon, each other's food.”
Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra
Albert Camus on Happiness
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“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Original French: La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un cœur d'homme; il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux. | Variant translation: The fight itself towards the summits suffices to fill a heart of man; it is necessary to imagine Sisyphus happy. -
“We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage. A Happy Death (written 1938), first published as La mort heureuse (1971), as translated by Richard Howard (1972)”
Nous nous trompons toujours deux fois sur ceux que nous aimons: d'abord à leur avantage, puis à leur désavantage. -
“Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.”
Absurd Creation -
“Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness , too, is a long patience .”
A Happy Death(written 1936-38 (published in 1971, over 11 years after the author's death))
Rumi on Happiness
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“Then think not lowly of thy heart, though lowly, For holy is it and there dwells the holy, God’s presence-chamber is the human breast, Ah! happy spirit with such Inmate blest.”
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 176, Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz (Falconer) -
“The generous die but their kindness remains, O happy he who drove this chariot (of kindness), The unjust die and their injustice remains, Alas for the soul that commits deceit and fraud.”
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 196 -
“Argue not from the condition of common men, Stumble not at severity and mercy; For mercy and severity, joy and sorrow are transient And transient things die; God is heir of all.”
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 237 (Whinfield) -
“If the sleeping spirit knew itself to be asleep, Whatever it might see, it would feel neither joy nor sorrow.”
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 244, Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz (Nicholson)
Albert Einstein on Happiness
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“Un homme heureux est trop content du présent pour trop se soucier de l'avenir.”
A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future. | From "Mes Projets d'Avenir", a French essay written at age 18 for a school exam (18 September 1896). The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein Vol. 1 (1987) Doc. 22. -
“A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.”
Un homme heureux est trop content du présent pour trop se soucier de l'avenir. -
“A dictatorship means muzzles all round and consequently stultification. Science can flourish only in an atmosphere of free speech .”
1930s | "Science and Dictatorship," in Dictatorship on Its Trial, by Eminent Leaders of Modern Thought (1930) - later as Dictatorship on Trial (1931), Otto Forst de Battaglia (1889-1965), ed., Huntley Paterso -
Attributed to Albert Einstein:
“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”
Swami Vivekananda on Happiness
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“To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion.”
Pearls of Wisdom -
“As body, mind, or soul, you are a dream; you really are Being, Consciousness, Bliss (satchidananda). You are the God of this universe.”
Pearls of Wisdom -
“We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough. You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute.”
Pearls of Wisdom -
“Learn to recognise the mother in Evil , Terror , Sorrow , Denial, as well as in Sweetness and in Joy .”
Address to his English disciples, as quoted in The life of Vivekananda and the Universal Gospel , 5th edition (1960) by Romain Rolland , p. 53
Zhuangzi on Happiness
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“Perfect happiness is keeping yourself alive, and only actionless action can have this affect.”
Zhuangzi | Ch. 18 (tr. Martin Palmer and Elizabeth Breuily, 1996) -
Attributed to Zhuangzi:
“When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten.”
-
Attributed to Zhuangzi:
“Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.”
-
Attributed to Zhuangzi:
“The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.”
Iris Murdoch on Happiness
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“He felt neither guilt nor distress at the pleasure with which he was now filled by the proximity of this young creature, and when he discovered in himself even physical symptoms of his inclination he did not take fright, but continued cheerfully and serenely to see Nick whenever the ordinary run of his duties suggested it, congratulating himself upon the newly achieved solidity and rational calm of his spiritual life.”
The Bell (1958) p. 91 -
“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”
A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970); 2001, p. 170. -
“Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one's ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonising preoccupation with self.”
The Nice and the Good (1968), ch. 22. -
Attributed to Iris Murdoch:
“One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.”
Aristotle on Happiness
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Attributed to Aristotle:
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
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Attributed to Aristotle:
“The good for man is an activity of the soul in conformity with virtue.”
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Attributed to Aristotle:
“The end of labour is to gain leisure.”
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Attributed to Aristotle:
“Happiness is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed.”
Roland Barthes on Happiness
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“The Pleasure of the Text (1975)”
Encratic language (the language produced and spread under the protection of power) is statutorily a language of repetition; all official institutions of language are repeating machines: schools, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words. -
“The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition: content, ideological schema, the blurring of contradictions—these are repeated, but the superficial forms are varied: always new books, new programs, new films, news items, but always the same meaning.”
La forme bâtarde de la culture de masse est la répétition honteuse: on répète les contenus, les schèmes idéologiques, le gommage des contradictions, mais on varie les formes superficielles: toujours des livres, des émissions, des films nouveaux, des faits divers, mais toujours le même sens. -
“Modern," in The Pleasure of the Text (1975)”
La forme bâtarde de la culture de masse est la répétition honteuse: on répète les contenus, les schèmes idéologiques, le gommage des contradictions, mais on varie les formes superficielles: toujours des livres, des émissions, des films nouveaux, des faits divers, mais toujours le même sens. -
“Sentence," in The Pleasure of the Text (1975)”
The politician being interviewed clearly takes a great deal of trouble to imagine an ending to his sentence: and if he stopped short? His entire policy would be jeopardized!
George Santayana on Happiness
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“There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.”
War Shrines -
“Pt. III, Form; § 30: "The average modified in the direction of pleasure.", p. 125”
On fact, the whole machinery of our intelligence, our general ideas and laws , fixed and external objects, principles , persons , and gods , are so many symbolic , algebraic expressions. They stand for experience ; experience which we are incapable of retaining and surveying in its multitudinous immediacy. We should flounder hopelessly, like the animals, did we not keep ourselves afloat and direct -
“Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.”
Wikiquote -
Attributed to George Santayana:
“The earth has its music for those who will listen.”
Shao Yong on Happiness
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“Some people, many who profess to be yogis , argue that vegetarianism is not a healthful diet for everyone. We agree that vegetarianism is not for everybody; it is only for those who desire happiness and peace. It is definitely a must for those who are interested in enlightenment.”
Jivamukti Yoga: Practices for Liberating Body and Soul , coauthored with David Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002), p. 65 . -
“If yogis are to come to the realization of the interconnectedness of life, then we must free ourselves from the conditioning that has caused us to think it is all right to exclude all the other animals from our own goals of peace, freedom, and happiness. … By working to alleviate the suffering of animals you are working at the cause level of human suffering.”
Sharon Gannon on Veganism”, in JivamuktiYoga.com (16 November 2016) . -
“Jivamukti Yoga is a path to enlightenment through compassion for all beings. Jivamukti is a Sanskrit word that means to live liberated in joyful, musical harmony with the Earth. The Earth does not belong to us—we belong to the Earth. Let us celebrate our connection to life by not enslaving animals and exploiting the Earth, and attain freedom and happiness for ourselves in the process. For surely, the best way to uplift our own lives is to do all we can to uplift the lives of others. Go vegan !”
Wikiquote -
“To be a joyful vegan in the world today is to become involved in the most radical, positive, political revolution ever. A fork can be a weapon of mass destruction or an instrument of peace. Everything a vegan eats or consumes reflects a choice that takes into account the well-being of others rather than just ourselves—and that is a big difference. Each one of us can make a huge difference by choosing not to eat animals. By choosing kindness over cruelty, we contribute to the sustainability of our planet Earth and can even change the destiny of our species and all the species on Earth.”
Wikiquote
Aristippus on Happiness
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Attributed to Aristippus:
“It is not abstinence from pleasures that is best, but mastery over them without being worsted.”
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Attributed to Aristippus:
“I possess, but I am not possessed.”
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Attributed to Aristippus:
“Time present is the only thing we possess.”
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Attributed to Aristippus:
“The wise man would not seek pleasure if it were always followed by pain.”
Crates of Thebes on Happiness
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Attributed to Crates of Thebes:
“I have a country that is not consumed by famine, nor besieged by enemies, nor inhabited by strangers; this country is poverty.”
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Attributed to Crates of Thebes:
“True wealth is to want little.”
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Attributed to Crates of Thebes:
“The poor are friends of the wise.”
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Attributed to Crates of Thebes:
“He who is content with his lot is rich.”
Seneca the Younger on Happiness
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“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est. -
“The wise man is joyful, happy and calm, unshaken, he lives on a plane with the gods.”
Letter LIX: On Pleasure and Joy -
“Virtue alone affords everlasting and peace-giving joy ; even if some obstacle arise, it is but like an intervening cloud, which floats beneath the sun but never prevails against it.”
Letter XXVII
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on Happiness
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“He alone is great and happy who fills his own station of independence, and has neither to command nor to obey. [ 1 ]”
So gewiß ist der allein glücklich und groß, der weder zu herrschen noch zu gehorchen braucht, um etwas zu sein! -
“I hold to faith in the divine love — which, so many years ago for a brief moment in a little corner of the earth, walked about as a man bearing the name of Jesus Christ — as the foundation on which alone my happiness rests.”
(1773), translated by Albert Schweizer in Goethe: Five Studies (1961), Beacon Press, p. 53 -
“A thinking man's greatest happiness is to have fathomed what can be fathomed and to revere in silence what cannot be fathomed.”
Maxims and Reflections(1833) | Maxim 1207, trans. Stopp ( p153 ) Variant translation: The greatest happiness for the thinking man is to have fathomed the fathomable, and to quietly revere the unfathomable.
John of the Cross on Happiness
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“On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings — oh, happy chance ! — I went forth without being observed, My house being now at rest. In darkness and secure, By the secret ladder, disguised — oh, happy chance! — In darkness and in concealment, My house being now at rest.”
En una noche oscura, con ansias, en amores inflamada , ¡oh dichosa ventura!, salí sin ser notada, estando ya mi casa sosegada; -
“In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me, Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart .”
Wikiquote -
“Blessed are they who, setting aside their own pleasure and inclination, consider things according to reason and justice before doing them.”
The Sayings of Light and Love
More philosophers on Happiness
- Baruch Spinoza
- Philo of Alexandria
- Patanjali
- Charles Fourier
- Derek Parfit
- Galen
- Henry Sidgwick
- Mary Astell
- Rabindranath Tagore
- William Paley
- Crantor
- Eduard von Hartmann
- Vatsyayana
- Henry Suso
- Sextus Empiricus
- Susan Wolf
- Stanley Cavell
- Thich Nhat Hanh
- Philodemus
- Arete of Cyrene
- Demetrius the Cynic
- Stilpo
- Bertrand Russell
- Confucius
- Thomas Carlyle
- Martin Luther
- Mary Wollstonecraft
- Jonathan Edwards
- Johann Gottfried Herder
- Bernard Mandeville
- Ibn Hazm
- Antisthenes
- Socrates
- Francis Bacon
- Adi Shankara
- Al-Ghazali
- Sarah Grimke
- Teresa of Avila
- Arthur Schopenhauer
- Lucretius
- Pierre Charron
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
- Adam Smith
- Bonaventure
- Petrarch
- Ramana Maharshi
- Solon
- Cheng Yi
- Claude Adrien Helvetius
- Democritus
- Erasmus
- Francis Hutcheson
- Gorgias
- Henri Poincare
- William Stanley Jevons
- Zeno of Citium
- Alain
- Catherine of Genoa
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Justin Martyr
- Margaret Fuller
- Avicenna
- Demonax
- Ernst Bloch
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- Sri Ramakrishna
- G. E. Moore
- Henry More
- Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz
- Lou Andreas-Salome
- Margaret Fell
- Al-Farabi
- Musonius Rufus
- Anaxarchus
- Apollodorus the Garden Tyrant
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- Diogenes of Oenoanda
- Emilie du Chatelet
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- Hecato of Rhodes
- Hermarchus
- Panaetius
- Polemo
- Teles of Megara
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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- Montesquieu
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- Bernard of Clairvaux
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- Plato
- David Hume
- F. H. Bradley
- Friedrich Kittler
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- Kate Manne
- Michael Polanyi
- Otto Neurath
- Peter Damian
- Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
- Yang Zhu
- Alexander Herzen
- Ananda Coomaraswamy
- Christine de Pizan
- Frank Ramsey
- Giordano Bruno
- Johannes Tauler
- Madhva
- Sigmund Freud
- Simplicius
- Thales of Miletus
- Thomas Huxley
- William Ellery Channing
- Al-Hallaj
- Al-Mawardi
- Dai Zhen
- Imre Lakatos
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- C. I. Lewis
- Lactantius
- Milarepa
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- Madeleine de Scudery
- Wilhelm Wundt
- Benedetto Croce
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- Pierre Bayle
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- Sara Ahmed
- Annette Baier
- Juan Luis Vives
- Philippa Foot
- Ramon Llull
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- Ibn Bajja
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- T. H. Green
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- Robert Spaemann
- Speusippus
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- Theodore Metochites
- William Frankena
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- Aenesidemus
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