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

Friedrich Nietzsche
Novalis

Christine de Pisan
Plato

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pythagoras

Friedrich Nietzsche
b. 10-15-1844; Röcken bei Lützen, Prussia
d. 8-25-1900; Weimar, Saxony, German Empire

Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th century philosopher, deeply questioned religion, morality, culture and science of an increasingly objectified and materialistic world, echoing American Ralph Waldo Emerson.

He was the youngest person to ever hold professorhip as the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel.

While accused of being the inspiration for nazism, he actually broke with his anti-Semetic editor and found his sister and brother-in-laws efforts to establish a “Germanic” colony in Paraguay laughable. Regretably it was his estranged sister and mother who “edited” his writings and estate during his mental breakdown and death.

Carl Gustav Jung read Nietzsche as a student and “spoke informally to members of his inner circle about a thinker whose works had not only overwhelmed him with the depth of their understanding of human nature but also provided the philosophical sources of many of his own psychological and metapsychological ideas” between 1934-39.

Friedrich Nietzsche quotes ~
• “All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.”
• “And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
• “Art is the proper task of life.”
• “The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.”
• “He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.”
• “In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.”
• “Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
• “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”
• “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
• “What? You search? You would multiply yourself by ten, by a hundred? You seek followers? Seek zeros!.”

• Nietzsche's Dancers : Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, and the Revaluation of Christian Values

Novalis
b. 5-2-1772; Oberwiederstedt, Electorate of Saxony, Germany
d. 3-25-1801

Novalis was the pen name for Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, a philosopher, mystic and civil engineer closely associated with German Romanticism.

Novalis chose to write much of his work as ‘literary fragments’ - deliberate writings meant to be unfinished.

Novals quotes ~
• “Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.”
• “A character is a completely fashioned will.”
• “I often feel, and ever more deeply I realize, that fate and character are the same conception.”
• “Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment.”
• “Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.”
• “Philosophy is properly home-sickness; the wish to be everywhere at home.”
• “Where children are, there is the golden age.”

• The Birth of Novalis: Friedrich Von Hardenberg's Journal of 1797, With Selected Letters and Documents

Christine de Pizan
b. c.1362; Venice, Italy
d. c.1431

Christine de Pizan was a feminist philosopher and first professional women writer in the medieval era. Her first works as a writer was to provide for her family after the death of her husband. She then became a critic of Jean de Meun who slandered women in his Romance of the Rose.

The illustration for the presentation frontispiece of Christine de Pizan presenting her Collected Works to Queen Isabeau of France consists solely of females.

Plato
b. c. 427 BC; Athens, Greece
d. c. 347 BC

Plato, a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.

Plato quotes ~
• “A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.”
• “Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.”
• “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
• “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
• “He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.”
• “The highest form of pure thought is in mathematics.”

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
b. 1-15-1809; Besançon, France
d. 1-19-1865

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was mutualist philosopher and socialist who espoused a peaceful social revolution of workers' associations or co-operatives, and individual worker/peasant possession, over private ownership or the nationalization of land and workplaces.

Pythagoras
b. c. 569 BC; Samos Island, Greece
d. c. 475 BC; Metapontum, Magna Graecia, (Italy)

Philosopher Pythagoras was a mathematician and founder of the movement called Pythagoreanism.

Many discoveries were attributed to Pythagoras, including his famous theorem, as well as discoveries in the field of music, astronomy, and medicine.

Pythagoras quotes ~
• “There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.”
• “Above all things, reverence yourself.”
• “Choose rather to be strong of soul than strong of body.”
• “The oldest, shortest words - “yes” and “no” - are those which require the most thought.”
• “There is a good principle which created order, light, and man, and an evil principle which created chaos, darkness, and woman.”

• Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library: An Anthology of Ancient Writings Which Relate fo Pythagoras and Pythagorean Philosopy