Essays & Short Works
- Philosophical Travelogues
- Essays on Society and Culture
- Essays for Personal Growth
- Explorations in Science and Thought
- Explorations in Psychology
- Political Essays and Reflections
- Political Essays and Manifestos
- Philosophical Essays on Existence
Crime
Clarence Darrow was an American lawyer. He remains notable for his wit and agnosticism, which marked him as one of the most famous American …
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
David Hume, an eminent Scottish philosopher, historian, and essayist, explores the nature and foundation of Morals in this book, which was w…
The Letters of a Post-Impressionist
“Being the Familiar Correspondence of Vincent Van Gogh ... [Van Gogh's] art was appreciated during his life only by a very few and it is but…
The Awful German Language
This long essay is a work of mock philology, one of several appendices to Twain’s travel novel, A Tramp Abroad. In it, Twain explains, compl…
Tea-table Talk
As the New York Times said in 1903, this lesser-known work by Jerome K. Jerome does not display "the wit of Congreve or even the glitte…
Areopagitica
A prose tract or polemic by John Milton, published November 23, 1644, at the height of the English Civil War... Milton, though a supporter o…
The Soul
Swedenborg, Emanuel, 1688-1772, was born in Stockholm, Sweden and died in London, England. He was a voluminous writer of scientific treatise…
Sacred Meditations
Meditationes Sacrae, was first published in Latin in 1606 when Gerhard was only twenty-two years old. It consists of 51 brief meditations on…
The Golden Age
The Golden Age is a collection of reminiscences of childhood, written by Kenneth Grahame and originally published in book form in 1895, in L…
Biographies in Sound
Biographies in Sound was an hour-long documentary radio program that was produced and broadcast in the 1950s. It's one of the best examples …
My Path to Atheism
My Path to Atheism is a remarkable document in many ways, not least that it was written by a woman in Victorian England, not the most open f…
The World as Will and Idea
In this work, Schopenhauer explains his fundamental idea that at the root of the reality we see around us is a Will that eternally, insatiab…
The Essays of Francis Bacon
Voltaire was an atheist. Diderot was Enlightened. But trite titles seldom encompass completely the beliefs of any individual. And this one f…
The Seven Lamps of Architecture
The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in May 1849, is an extended essay written by the English art critic and theorist John Ruskin. The…
The Moral Equivalent of War
The Moral Equivalent of War, the last public utterance of William James, is significant as expressing the opinions of a practical psychologi…
A Miscellany of Men
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was among the world's most prolific writers who incorporated relentless logic, wonderful humor, and a clear view of…
How We Think
A book written by an American education philosopher in which he proposed “This scientific attitude of mind might, conceivably, be quite irr…
What the White Race May Learn from the Indian
People learn from other people, and races have forever learned from other races. Herein we are treated to an in-depth understanding of categ…
The Madman
Two short books by the Lebanese-American writer, poet, and mystic. Reflections on existence and life, purpose and meaning. His most famous w…
Essays
In his profound collection of essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson explores the intricate relationship between the individual and the universe. Throu…