Philosophers Educational Posters & Prints, “T...-Z...-”
individuals who made contributions to the study of knowledge itself.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Thales of Miletus

Henry David Thoreau
Miguel de Unamuno

Alfred North Whitehead
Zeno of Citium

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
b. 5-1-1881; France
d. 4-10-1955; NY

• more Teilhard posters

Thales of Miletus
fl. 620-540 BC; Miletus, Ionian Greek, Asia Minor

The philosopher and mathematician Thales, known as the “Father of Science”, rejected mythological explanations of natural phenomenon and defined general principles essential for the scientific processing of thought. Thales is one of the Seven Sages of Greece: Cleobulus of Lindos, Solon of Athens, Chilon of Spara, Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mytilene, and Perlander of Corinth

Thales of Miletus quotes ~
• “The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.”
• “Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.”
• “Nothing is more ancient than God, for He was never created; nothing more beautiful than the world, it is the work of that same God; nothing is more active than thought, for it flies over the whole universe; nothing is stronger than necessity, for all must submit to it.”

• Inner Logodynamics in Thales of Miletus

Henry David Thoreau
b. 7-12-1817; Concord, MA
d. 12-31-1836; Concord

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
Walden, Henry David Thoreau

• more Henry David Thoreau posters
• ecology posters

Miguel de Unamuno
b. 9-29-1864; Basque, Spain
d. 12-31-1936

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a philosopher and writer. He was opposed to Franco and died under house arrest in 1936.

Miguel de Unamuno quotes ~
• “Art distills sensations and embodies it with enhanced meaning.”
• “True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant.”
• “Cure yourself of the affliction of caring how you appear to others. Concern yourself only with how you appear before God, concern yourself only with the idea that God may have of you.”
• “There is no true love save in suffering, and in this world we have to choose either love, which is suffering, or happiness. Man is the more man - that is, the more divine - the greater his capacity for suffering, or rather, for anguish.”
• “Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.”
• “It is sad not to love, but it is much sadder not to be able to love.”
• “Suffering is the substance of life and the root of personality, for it is only suffering that makes us persons.”
• “Some people will believe anything if you whisper it to them.”
• “That which the Fascists hate above all else, is intelligence.”
• “If a person never contradicts himself, it must be that he says nothing.”

• Tragic Sense of Life by Unamuno

Alfred North Whitehead
b. 2-15-1861; Ramsgate, Kent, England
d. 12-30-1947; Cambridge, MA

Author Alfred North Whitehead is best remembered as a mathematician, philosopher and educator. He collaborated with Bertrand Russell on Principia Mathematica, an attempt to ground mathematics on logic.

Quote from poster: “Disinterested scientific curiosity is a passion for an ordered intellectual vision of the connection events. But the goal of such curiosity is the marriage of action to thought. This essential intervention of action even in abstract science is often overlooked. No man of science want merely to know. He aquires knowledge to appease his passion for discovery. He does not discover in order to know, he knows in order to discover. The pleasure which art and science can give to toil is the enjoyment which arises from successfully directed intention. Also it is the same pleasure which is yielded to the scientist and to the artist.” The Aims of Education, 1947

Alfred North Whitehead quotes ~
• “Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.”
• “The silly question is the first intimation of some totally new development.”
• “Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.”
• “Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.”
• “Fools act on imagination without knowledge, pedants act on knowledge without imagination.”
• “If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.”
• “Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.”
• “Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct form ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.”
• “Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe.”
• “Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice.”
• “The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.”
• “Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it.”

Zeno of Citium
b. c. 334 BC; Citium, Cyprus
d. c. 262 BC; Athens

Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, taught in Athens from about 300 BC. Based on the moral ideas of the Cynics, Stoicism laid great emphasis on goodness and peace of mind gained from living a life of virtue in accordance with nature.

Stoicism proved very successful, and flourished as the dominant philosophy from the Hellenistic period through to the Roman era, probably shared roots with early Christianity.

FYI ~ The name Cynic derives from the Greek word kynikos = “dog-like”, and likely refers to how the people who followed the philosophy would reject conventional manners and live on the streets. The epitaph was meant as an insult, see Diogenes of Sinope.

Zeno of Citium quotes ~
• “Wellbeing is attained by little and little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.”
• “No evil is honorable: but death is honorable; therefore death is not evil.”
• “Fate is the endless chain of causation, whereby things are; the reason or formula by which the world goes on.”

• A Summary of Stoic Philosophy: Zeno of Citium in Diogenes Laertius Book Seven

Quotes about cynics ~
• “A cynic is just a man who found out when he was about ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's still upset.” ~ James Gould Cozzens
• “It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.” ~ Fannie Hurst
• “A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.” ~ H. L. Mencken