Beginning with a dilemma about whether he spends more money on reading or smoking, George Orwell's entertaining and...

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have...

Whether puncturing the lies of politicians, wittily dissecting the English character or telling unpalatable truths about war,...

'It is possible for man to snatch the world from the darkness of absurdity'

How should we think and act in the world? These...

'When silence or tricks of language contribute to maintaining an abuse that must be reformed or a suffering that can be relieved,...

'It is impossible to live the pleasant life without also living sensibly, nobly and justly'

The ancient Greek philosopher and...

'Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, the command to love one's enemy is an absolute necessity for our...

'People can only be free in relation to one another.'

Three exhilarating and inspiring essays in which the great...

'We live within a spectacle of empty clothes and unworn masks'

In this series of remarkable pieces from across his career,...

'One swallow does not make a summer; neither does one day. Similarly neither can one day, or a brief space of time, make a man...

'When the last fire goes out, time too will be finished'

Italo Calvino was one of the most joyful and imaginative writers of...

'We have left dry land and put out to sea! We have burned the bridge behind us - what is more, we have burned the land behind...

'Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life'

The two works brought together here, 'The Decay of Lying' and 'The Critic...

'What Japan was she owed to the samurai. They were not only the flower of the nation, but its root as well.'

Inazo Nitobe's...

'Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor'

Fuelled by anger at injustice...

Tagore was a fierce opponent of British rule in India. In this work he discusses the resurgence of the East and the challenge it...

Widely regarded as the father of modern Western philosophy, Descartes sought to look beyond established ideas and create a...

'We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes'

Theodor Herzl's passionate advocacy...

'Wars are not won by evacuations'

'We can take it!'

'Westward look, the land is bright'

This collection of speeches from...

A fascinating examination of ethics, religion and psychology, this selection of Schopenhauer's works contains scathing attack on...

In one of the most influential philosophical works ever writen, John Stuart Mill explores the risks and responsibilities of...

Immanuel Kant was one of the most influential philosophers in the whole of Europe, who changed Western thought with his...

John Locke was one of the greatest figures of the Enlightenment, whose assertion that reason is the key to knowledge changed the...

In Utopia Thomas More painted a fantastical picture of a distant island where society is perfected and people live in harmony,...

Adam Smith's landmark treatise on the free market paved the way for modern capitalism, arguing that competition is the engine of...

Created by the seventeenth-century philosopher and mathematician Pascal, the essays contained in Human Happiness are a curiously...

This investigation of religion by greatest psychoanalyst of the twentieth-century explores the role faith can take in the life of...

Describing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession is an autobiographical work of...

John Ruskin overturned Victorian society’s ideas about art and architecture, arguing that ancient buildings must be conserved for...

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have...