January 1 in History

Socrates

469 BCE – 398 BCE

Literature

159

quotes

Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, perhaps the first Western moral philosopher, and a major inspiration on his student Plato, who largely founded the tradition of Western philosophy. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. These accounts are written as dialogues, in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine a subject in the style of question and answer; they gave rise to the Socratic dialogue literary genre.

Confucius

550 BCE – 478 BCE

Philosophy

109

quotes

Confucius (551 BC) was a Chinese philosopher and politician whose teachings profoundly influenced East Asian thought and culture.

Sun Tzu

544 BCE – 496 BCE

Literature

16

quotes

Sun Tzu was a Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer who lived during the Eastern Zhou period. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of The Art of War, a Classical Chinese text on military strategy from the Warring States period, though the earliest parts of the work probably date to at least a century after him.

Thucydides

500 BCE – 420 BCE

Literature

72

quotes

Thucydides was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.

Herodotus

483 BCE – 424 BCE

History

31

quotes

Herodotus was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the Histories, a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars, among other subjects such as the rise of the Achaemenid dynasty of Cyrus. He has been described as "The Father of History", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Cicero.

Pindar

516 BCE – 436 BCE

Literature

8

quotes

Pindar was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable." His poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar.

Pythagoras

570 BCE – 495 BCE

Mathematics

92

quotes

Pythagoras of Samos was an ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician who founded the Pythagorean school; he is best known for the Pythagorean theorem and for influential teachings that combined mathematics, philosophy, and religious practice.

Laozi

579 BCE – 500 BCE

Literature

31

quotes

Laozi, formerly latinized as Laocius, was a legendary Chinese philosopher considered to be the author of the Tao Te Ching, one of the foundational texts of Taoism. Modern scholarship generally regards his biographical details as later inventions and his opus a collaboration of various writers, with the name Laozi, literally meaning 'Old Master', likely intended to portray an archaic anonymity that could converse with Confucianism. Traditional accounts addend him as Li Er, born in the 6th-century BC state of Chu during China's Spring and Autumn period.