Tao Te Ching

The Power of Goodness, the Wisdom Beyond Words
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Sages

These short bios represent cultural alchemists who have and do work with their psychological environments to transmute the negative influences of their times into wisdom and goodness. Humanity is like a work of evolutionary art and these figures represent colors and forms we constantly use—sometimes consciously but more often unconsciously—in shaping and dealing with our experiences.

"Here, perhaps, is the true litany of saints; these are the names that should adorn our calendars, with those that gave new beauty to the world, or counseled it to gentler humanity... but no list could exhaust the treasure of man's heritage or equal its infinite variety.... let us have many lists and many heroes we cannot honor them too much , or commemorate them excessively."—Will Durant

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A.A. Milne

Aacharya Haribhadra Suri

Abaris Hyperboreios

Abbakka Chowta

Abdu’l-Bahá'

Abdul Sattar Edhi

Abigail Adams

Abraham Lincoln

Abu Yazid al-Bisṭāmī

Aciṅta

Adam Smith

Adi Shankara

Aeneas

Aeschylus

Aesop

Agrippa

Ajogi

Al-Ghazali

Al-Kindi

Alan Gua

Alan Watts

Albert Camus

Albert Einstein

Albert Schweitzer

Aldous Huxley

Alexander Pope

Alexandra David-Néel

Alexandre Dumas

Alexis de Tocqueville

Alhazen

Allen Ginsberg

Anagarika​ (Lama) Govinda

Anais Nin

Ananda

Ananda Coomaraswamy

Anatole France

Anaxagoras

Anna Akhmatova

Anna Grigoryevna Dostoyevskaya

Annie Besant

Anthony Trollope

Antisthenes

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoninus Pius

Arcesilaus

Archimedes

Aretha Franklin

Ariel Durant

Aristotle

Arnold Toynbee

Aro Lingma, Khyungchen

Arthur Desmond

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Waley

Arwa al-Sulayhi

Arya Prajnadhara

Āryadeva

Ashoka

Ashvaghosha

Aspasia

Atisha

Audrey Hepburn

Augustine

Augustus

Averroes, Ibn Rushd

Avicenna

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

B.R. Ambedkar

Bahá'u'lláh

Balthasar Gracian

Balzac

Bankei

Bankei Yōtaku

Barack Obama

Baruch Spinoza

Bassui Tokushō

Benazir Bhutto

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Lay

Bertrand Russell

Bhadrapa

Bhadrapa

Bhikṣanapa

Bill Mollison

Black Elk

Blaise Pascal

Blavatsky, Helena

Bob Dylan

Bob Marley

Bodhidharma

Boris Pasternak

Buckminster Fuller

Buddha

Bunan

Callimachus

Campaka

Cao Daochong

Carbaripa

Carl Jung

Carlos Castaneda

Carolyn Cassady

Cassandra

Catherine di Medici

Catherine the Great

Cato

Catrapa

Cauraṅgipa

César Chavez

Chamaripa

Chandragupta Maurya

Chang-shih

Charles Beard

Charles Darwin

Charles Mackay

Charlotte Joko Beck

Chén Jìrú

Cheng Man-ch'ing

Cheng Tang

Chéng Xuanying

Cheng Zhu

Chiao Hung

Chögyam Trungpa

Chuang Tzu

Cicero

Cincinnatus

Claude Monet

Cleopatra

Confucius

Copernicus, Nicolaus​

Cosimo de’ Medici

Dalai Lama XIV

Dane Rudhyar

Daniel Webster

Dante

Dārikapa

David Grayson

David Hume

Dazu Huike

Dean Inge

Deganawida

Demeter

Democritus

Demosthenes

Ḍeṅgipa

Denys de Rougemont

Deqing

Descartes

Dharima

Dharmapa

Dhilipa

Dhobīpa

Diderot

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Diogenes

Diogenes of Oenoanda

Disraeli, Benjamin

Dōgen Zenji

Dolores Huerta

Dölpopa Shérap Gyeltsen

Dombipa

Don José Matsuwa

Dongshan Liangjie

Du Fu 杜甫

Duanmu Ci

Duke Wen of Jin

Dukhandhi

Dzigar Kongtrül Rinpoche

Dzogchen Pönlop

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

E. F. Schumacher

Edgar Allan Poe

Edith Hamilton

Edward Gibbon

Edward T Chʻien

Elbert Hubbard

Eleanor Roosevelt

Elizabeth I

Ellen Craft

Emanuel Swedenborg

Emily Dickinson

Empedocles

Emperor Shun

Empress Suiko

Epictetus

Epicurus

Erasmus

Eratosthenes

Erich Fromm

Euripides

Ezra Pound

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fanny Osbourne Stevenson

Faustina

Ferdowsi

Florence Nightingale

Frances Perkins

Francesca Fremantle

Francis Bacon

Francis of Assisi

François Pétis de la Croix

Franklin Roosevelt

Freda Bedi, Sister Palmo

Frederick Douglass

Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Viktor Strauß

Fu Xi

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky

G. I. Gurdjieff

G. K. Chesterton

Gabriel García Márquez

Galileo

Gampopa

Gaspara Stampa

Gendün Chöphel

Genghis Khan

Geoffrey Chaucer

Georg Hegel

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

George Bernard Shaw

George Eliot

George Harrison

George Henry Lewes

George Mason

George Orwell

George Sand

George Seldes

Georgios Zorbas

Gesar of Ling

Gesshin Myoko Roshi

Ghaṇṭāpa

Gia-Fu Feng

Giordano Bruno

Giorgio Vasari

Giovanni Boccaccio

Godhuripa

Goenka

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von

Goraksa

Grace Hopper

Gregory Bateson

Guan Yu

Guangchengzi

Guo Shoujing

Guru Amar Das

Guru Angad

Guru Arjan

Guru Gobind Singh

Guru Har Krishan

Guru Har Rai Ji

Guru Hargobind

Guru Nanak Gurmukhi

Guru Ram Das

Guru Tegh Bahadur

Gwanggaeto the Great

H. G. Wells

Hadrian

Hafiz

Hakuin Ekaku

Hammurabi

Hán Fēi

Han Shan

Hannah Arendt

Harriet Tubman

Haruki Murakami

Hatshepsut

Heinrich Graetz

Helen Pitts Douglass

Helena Roerich

Heleni Kazantzakis

Heloise

Henri-Louis Bergson

Henrik Ibsen

Henry David Thoreau

Henry James

Henry Miller

Henry Thomas Buckle

Heraclitus

Hergé

Herman Melville

Hermann Hesse

Herodotus

Heshang Gong

Hesiod

Hiawatha

Hilda of Whitby

Hildegard Knef

Hildegard of Bingen

Hipparchia

Hojo Tokimune

Homer

Hóngzhì Zhēngjué

Horace

Howard Zinn

Hua Mulan

Hua-Ching Ni

Huangbo Xiyun

Huangdi

Huating Decheng

Hubert Reeves

Hui Hai

Huineng

Huizong

Huston Smith

Hypatia

I. F. Stone

Ibn Khaldun

Ibn' Arabi

Ida Tarbell

Igjugarjuk

Ikkyū Sōjun

Imhotep

Immanuel Kant

Inayat Khan

Indrabhūti

Isaac Newton

Isabella I

Isaiah Berlin

Isocrates

Ivan Illich

J. D. Salinger

Jack Kerouac

Jack LaLanne

Jack Weatherford

Jakusho Kwong

Jālandhara

James Hilton

James Joyce

James Legge

James Michener

James P. Carse

Jamgon Kongtrul the Great

Jane Goodall

Jayānanda

Jean Giono

Jean Houston

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jeanne de Salzmann

Jeremy Bentham

Jesus

Jetsun Rinpoche, Shugsep

Jiǎndí

Jiǎng Wéiqiáo

Jiang Ziya

Jianzhi Sengcan

Jim Harrison

Joan Baez

Joan of Arc

Joel Chandler Harris

John Blofeld

John Dewey

John Donne

John Fire Lame Deer

John Keats

John Lennon

John Maynard Keynes

John of the Cross

John Ruskin

John Stuart Mill

John Wycliffe

Jonathan Swift

Jorge Luis Borges

José Argüelles

Joseph Campbell

Joseph Medicine Crow

Joshu, Zhàozhōu Cōngshěn

Julian Bond

Juliette Récamier

Kabīr

Kahlil Gibran

Kakuan Shien

Kakusan Shido

Kālapa

Kambala

Kanakhala

Kāngxī

Kanhapa

Kaṅkaṇa

Kaṅkāripa

Kantalipa

Kapālapa

Karen Armstrong

Karl Popper

Karma Chagme Rinpoche I

Karma Pakshi

Karmapa XVI

Karmapa XVII

Keith Dowman

Ken Kesey

Kenneth Rexroth

Khaḍgapa

Khutulun

Kim Stanley Robinson

King David

Kirapālapa

Koheleth

Koṭālipa

Krishnamurti

Kukkuripa

Kumārajīva

Kumbharipa

Lais of Corinth

Lakshmincara

Langston Hughes

Lao Tzu

Lavinia

Layman Pang

Leibniz

Leizu

Leo Tolstoy

Leonard Cohen

Leonardo da Vinci

Leontium

Lewis Thomas

Li Bai

Li Gotami Govinda

Li Xizhai

Lǐ Yú

Lie Yukou

Lilapa

Lin Mo Niang

Lín Yǔtáng

Liú Ān

Liu Yiming

Liú Yǔxī

Longchenpa

Lord Byron

Lou Andreas-Salomé

Louise Erdrich

Lü Dongbin

Lu Huiqing

Lù Jiǔyuān

Lǔ Xùn

Lucian of Samosata

Lucretius

Lucy Parsons

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Lūipa

Machiavelli

Machig Labdrön

Madame Curie

Madame de Pompadour

Madame de Staël

Madame Guyon

Madame Roland

Mahākāśyapa

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahavira

Mai Bhago Kaur

Maitreyi

Makeda, Queen of Sheba

Malala Yousafzai

Malcolm X

Mandukhai Khatun

Manibhadra

Marcel Proust

Marco Polo

Marcus Aurelius

Margaret Chase Smith

Margaret Cochran Corbin

Margaret Mead

Marie Bonaparte

Mark Twain

Marpa Lotsawa

Marshall McLuhan

Martin Buber

Martin Luther King Jr.

Mary Catherine Bateson

Mary of Magdala

Mary Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft

Masanobu Fukuoka

Matsuo Bashō

Matthieu Ricard

Max Lerner

Maya Angelou

Medhini

Meera

Meister Eckhart

Mekhala

Mekopa

Mencius

Menelik I

Michelangelo

Michelle Obama

Miguel de Cervantes

Mikhail Bakunin

Milarepa

Mildred Dresselhaus

Minapa

Ming Taizu

Mingyur Rinpoche

Mircea Eliade

Mondup Sherab

Mongush Kenin-Lopsan

Montaigne

Mozi

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Iqbal

Mujū Dōkyō

Mumon Ekai

Mumtaz Mahal

Nagabodhi

Nagarjuna

Namkhai Norbu

Nanaki

Nansen, Nanquan Puyuan

Napoleon Bonaparte

Nāropā

Neal Cassady

Nichiren Daishonin

Nicholas Roerich

Niguma

Nikola Tesla

Nikos Kazantzakis

Nirgunapa

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Noam Chomsky

Noor Inayat Khan

Novalis

Nüwa

Octavio Paz

Odysseus

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Omar Khayyám

Oren Lyons

Orghina Khatun

O​rpheus

Ortega y Gassett, José

Oscar Wilde

Ouspensky

Ovid

Padmasambhava

Papa Henry Auwae

Paracelsus

Parmenides

Parshvanatha

Paul Carus

Paul Reps

Paul Seabright

Paulo Lugari

Pearl Buck

Pema Chödrön

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Pericles

Peter Abelard

Peter Kingsley

Petrarch

Phidias

Philip K. Dick

Philodemus

Phryne

Pindar

Plato

Pliny

Plotinus

Plutarch

Pocahontas

Poggio Bracciolini

Powell Clayton

Prince Shotoku

Proclus Lycaeus

Protagoras

Pyrrho

Pythagorus

Qu Yuan

Queen Mother of the West

Queen Tiye

Quintilian

R. D. Laing

Rabbinic Sages

Rabia Basri

Rabindranath Tagore

Rainer Maria Rilke

Ralph Alan Dale

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ramakrishna

Ramana Maharshi

Razia Sultan

Reb Zalman

Red Pine

Reinhold Niebuhr

René Descartes

René Dubos

Richard Wilhelm

Rinzai Gigen

Robert Hutchins

Robert Anton Wilson

Robert Burns

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert M. Pirsig

Robert S. De Ropp

Robert Smalls

Robert Wright

Robin Hood

Robin Kornman

Romain Rolland

Roman Krznaric

Rosa Parks

Rosalynn Carter

Rudyard Kipling

Rumi

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Fuller Sasaki

Ryokan

Ryszard Kapuściński

Saadi Shiraz

Sacagawea

Sakya Pandita

Saladin

Samuel Butler

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Santayana, George

Sappho

Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Grimke

Saraha

Sarvabhaksha

Saul Alinsky

Śavaripa

Semele

Seneca

Seungsahn

Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol

Shan Dao

Shantideva

Shantipa

Shechen Gyaltsap

Shen Kuo

Shennong

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

Shyalipa

Sigmund Freud

Sima Guang

Sima Qian

Simon Bolivar

Socrates

Sojourner Truth

Solomon

Solomon ibn Gabirol

Solon

Solovyov

Songtsen Gampo

Soong Ching-ling

Soong Mei-ling

Sophocles

Søren Kierkegaard

Stephen Mitchell

Su Che

Su Shi

Sun Bu'er

Sun Qifeng

Sun Tzu

Sun Yat-sen

Susan B. Anthony

Swami Vivekananda

T. S. Eliot

Táhirih

Taizong of Tang 唐太宗

Tamar

Tantepa

Tantipa

Tao Yuanming

Teilhard de Chardin

Teresa of Avila

Thaganapa

Thales of Miletus

Thích Nhất Hạnh

Thinley Norbu

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Cleary

Thomas Edison

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Mann

Thomas Merton

Thomas More

Thomas Paine

Thomas Wolfe

Thucydides

Thurgood Marshall

Tilopa

Timothy Leary

Toni Morrison

Toni Packer

Touzi Yiqing

Trisong Detsän

Tsongkhapa

Udhilipa

Upagupta

Ursula Le Guin

Vasily Vasilievich Rozanov

Vasubandhu

Victor Hugo

Vimalkirti

Vinapa

Virgil

Virginia Woolf

Virupa

Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet

Vyālipa

Vyasa

W. E. B. Du Bois

W. S. Gilbert

W.B. (William Butler) Yeats

Walpola Rahula Thero

Walt Whitman

Wang Anshi

Wang Bi

Wang Pang

Wang Zhen

Wangchuk Dorje

Wei Wu Wei

Wendell Berry

Wenzi

Will (and Ariel) Durant

Will Durant

Will Rogers

Willa Cather

William Blake

William Carlos Williams

William Godwin

William Hazlitt

William James

William of Ockham

William Shakespeare

William Wordsworth

Wing-tsit Chan

Winston Churchill

Witter Bynner

Woody Allen

Wu Cheng

Wu Zetian

Xenophanes

Xenophon of Athens

Xuanzong

Yājñavalkya

Yang Xiong

Yayoi Kusama

Yeshe Tsogyal

Yin Xi

Yoko Ono

Yòngjiā Xuānjué

Yoshida Kenkō

Yu the Great

Yuanwu Keqin

Yung-lo

Yunmen Wenyan

Yuval Harari

Zainab, Sayyeda Zaynab bint Ali

Zarathushtra

Zeno

​Zhang Xuecheng 章学诚

Zheng He

Zhou Dunyi

Zhu Xi

Ziryab

Zisi

Listed, but sages? Villains of humanity Unlisted

Comments (1)

  1. Shan Dao
    Shan Dao 11 months ago
    "Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probably that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings." — George Orwell, Reflections on Gandhi
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