Essays and Lectures

Heretics

G.K. Chesterton · 160 pages

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on the 29th of May, 1874. Though he considered himself a mere rollicking journalist, he was actually a prolific and gifted writer in virtually every area of literature. A man of strong opinions and enormously talented at defending them, his exuberant personality nevertheless allowed him to maintain warm friendships with people - such as George B

The Will to Believe, Human Immortality and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy

William James · 402 pages

Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

Henry David Thoreau · 188 pages

The Abolition of Man

C.S. Lewis · 116 pages

C. S. Lewis sets out to persuade his audience of the importance and relevance of universal values such as courage and honor in contemporary society.

Fear and Trembling/Repetition

Soren Kierkegaard · 464 pages

The two books comprised in this volume are in greater demand than any other works of Kierkegaard. This preference is a credit to the public taste, for Kierkegaard himself called them "the most perfect books I have written," though in this commendation he included The Concept of Dread, and later stretched it to include Training in Christianity.

On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo

Friedrich Nietzsche · 378 pages

Collected Writings: Common Sense/The Crisis/Rights of Man/The Age of Reason/Pamphlets/Articles & Letters

Thomas Paine · 906 pages

"I know not whether any man in the world," wrote John Adams in 1805, "has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Tom Paine." The impassioned democratic voice of the Age of Revolution, Paine wrote for his mass audience with vigor, clarity, and "common sense." This is the first major new edition of his work in 50 years, and the most comprehensive single-volum

Modern Man in Search of a Soul

C.G. Jung · 244 pages

Montaigne: Essays

Michel de Montaigne · 416 pages

Translates selections from sixteenth-century French writer Michel de Montaigne's "Essays," a collection that presents Montaigne's philosophical opinions on a wide variety of subjects, including books, relationships, cruelty, and smells.

The Analects

Confucius · 252 pages

"Formulated in the ruins of a society that had been founded on untenable spiritualistic concepts of governance, Confucius' philosophy postulated a humanistic social order that has survived as China's social ideal ever since." "Confucius' teachings are very literary in nature. The Analects is made up of dialogues, stories, and anecdotes, always aphoristic and full of poetic turns of thought."--BOOK

The World As I See It

Albert Einstein · 114 pages

Presents dozens of articles, essays, letters and other correspondence written by Einstein between 1922 and 1934. These revealing pieces focus on the human side of Einstein's accomplishments, covering topics such as the meaning of life, good and evil, religion and science, wealth, pacifism, the world economic crisis, Palestine, and anti-Semitism.

Existentialism and Human Emotions

Jean-Paul Sartre · 96 pages

A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees

Yoshida Kenko · 64 pages

Reveries of the Solitary Walker

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Myth of Sisyphus

Albert Camus · 169 pages

One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus--featured here in a stand-alone edition--is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide--the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly

Waiting for God

Simone Weil · 208 pages

"Emerging from the thought-provoking discussions and correspondence Simone Weil had with the Reverend Father Perrin, this classic collection of essays contains the renowned philosopher and social activist's most profound meditations on the relationship of human life to the realm of the transcendent. An enduring masterwork and "one of the most neglected resources of our century" (Adrienne Rich), Wa

The Essays

Francis Bacon · 250 pages

Discusses truth, death, revenge, adversity, envy, marriage, love, goodness, superstition, friendship, ambition, aging, beauty, gardens, and honor.

Walden, Civil Disobedience, and Other Writings

Henry David Thoreau, William Rossi · 672 pages

In addition to the texts of 'Walden' and 'Civil Disobedience', this revised and expanded 'Norton Critical Edition' reprints the increasingly important works 'Slavery in Massachusetts', 'Walking' and 'Wild Apples'. All texts are accompanied by annotations.

For the Time Being

Annie Dillard · 205 pages

Following a novel, a memoir, and a book of poems, Annie Dillard returns to a form of nonfiction she has made her own--now, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.This personal narrative surveys the panorama of our world, past and present. Here is a natural history of sand, a catalogue of clouds, a batch of newborns on an obstetrical

This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women

Jay Allison, Dan Gediman · 291 pages

Presents essays expressing the core principles that guide the lives of 89 different people, some famous, some not, including politicians, nurses, artists, athletes, parents, students and more.

What I Believe

Bertrand Russell · 94 pages

The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought

Marilynne Robinson · 254 pages

In the tradition of nineteenth-century novelists who turned to the essay, Marilynne Robinson offers an authoritative approach to refining the ideas our culture has handed down to us. Whether considering how the McGuffey readers were inspired by midwestern abolitionists; how creationism, "long owned by the Religious Right," has spurred on contemporary Darwinism; or how John Calvin, who was a French

Does It Matter?

Alan W. Watts · 125 pages

This is a series of essays representing philosopher Alan Watts's most recent thinking on the astonishing problems of man's relations to his material environment. The basic theme is that civilized man confuses symbol with reality, his ways of describing and measuring the world with the world itself, and thus puts himself into the absurd situation of preferring money to wealth and eating the menu in

Anarchism and Other Essays

Emma Goldman · 201 pages

"Anarchism asserts the possibility of an organization without discipline, fear, or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty: a new social organism which will make an end to the terrible struggle for the means of existence,--the savage struggle which undermines the finest qualities in man, and ever widens the social abyss. In short, Anarchism strives towards a social organization which will