'Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.'

Social work pioneer Jane Addams (1860 - 1935) on civilization

"Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men."

'Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.'

- Suffragist Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

'One man can make a difference and every man should try.'

- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994)

'How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.' - Anne Frank

'Hearts are the strongest when they beat in response to noble ideals.'

- American diplomat Ralph Bunche (1904–1971)

'Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an aesthetic end.'

- Author James Joyce (1882 -1941)

'The true measure of all our actions is how long the good in them lasts.'

- Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)

'Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.'

- Legendary author Jane Austen (1775 -1817)

'Most of man's problems upon this planet, in the long history of the race, have been met and solved either partially or as a whole by experiment based on common sense and carried out with courage.'

-Frances Perkins (1880-1965), first female member of US Cabinet

'The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them'

- Ida B. Wells, co-founder of the NAACP (1862-1931)

'If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time.'

- Activist Dorothy Height (1912-2010)

Truth is best known for her 1851 speech in Akron linking abolition and women's rights

At the 1851 Women's Rights Convention, Truth gave a speech that cemented her legacy, weaving together abolition and women's rights in remarks that became among the most quoted of the 19th century.

'The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity. It's our attempt to influence things, the universe internal to ourselves and external to us.'

- Mae Jemison (1956-present), the first Black woman in space

'What each of us must come to realize is that our intent always comes through.'

- First African American Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993)

Listen to an Anthropic staff philosopher discuss the importance of teaching ethics to AI.

'There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.'

- Jane Austen, from "Emma"

'Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.'

- Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968)

A Quote by Sandra Day O'Connor

"Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time."

'I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.'

- Actress and singer Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992)

The long-tail influence of Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience'

His essay "Civil Disobedience" laid out both a practical and a moral plan for resisting unjust governments, inspiring civil rights leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as anti-war anarchists like Emma Goldman and literary figures like Leo Tolstoy.

Jackson Pollock and others developed 'action painting,' highlighting the creative process

A subcategory of performance art, action painting emerged in 1945 as a way to capture a moment-by-moment view of the creative process through painting. For these pieces, the physical act of painting is as important as the finished product. This short explainer video covers the philosophy behind action painting, as well as exploring the works of several well-known action painters, including Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko.

Watch writer John Steinbeck's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

'And I knew that it was better to live out one's absurdity than to die for that of others.'

-Ralph Ellison, from "Invisible Man" (1913-1994)

'One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world'

- Activist and author Malala Yousafzai (1997-present)

'A word after a word after a word is power.'

- Author Margaret Atwood (1939-present)

'No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.'

-Charles Dickens (1812-1870), in "Our Mutual Friend"

John Steinbeck's philosophical ideas, which he often explored in his novels, wrestled with the role of the individual and the power of community.

A linguist argues Jane Austen's language is what defines her fiction

While many readers love Austen's novels for their characters and their romantic plots, Chi Luu argues that many people (including literary luminaries like Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, and Ralph Waldo Emerson) underestimate how her adept wordplay, sense of irony, and memorable turns of phrase are what have made readers fall in love with her fiction for centuries.

'No one has ever become poor by giving.'

- Anne Frank (1929-1945)

'A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.'

- Jackie Robinson, the first Black MLB player (1919-1972)

What we can learn from animal societies' ethics

'I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.'

- American novelist Eudora Welty (1909-2001)

Exploring the work of Frances Burney, one of Jane Austen's main influences

Jane Austen is often credited with pioneering the narrative technique of "free indirect discourse," in which a narrator embodies a character's style without using the first-person perspective. But this essay argues Burney is the real innovator and that Austen, a fan of Burney's, continued using the technique to more acclaim.

Joan Didion's 1975 commencement speech at UCR encouraged graduates to think outside of themselves

Filled with many widely circulated quotes, the talk addresses people's tendency to focus only on their personal ideologies and perceptions of the world. Didion advocates for being an active participant in the world, rather than existing only in our own bubbles.

Truth joined a utopian project in the early 1840s

The Northampton Association of Education and Industry was a brief utopian community in Massachusetts that united abolitionists, reformers, and intellectuals. Truth lived and worked alongside William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass; this helped to launch her career as a public speaker and activist.

'You don't get to choose how you're going to die or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.'

- Musician and activist Joan Baez (1941-present)

'Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul—and sings the tunes without the words—and never stops at all.'

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes championed the idea of speech as a 'marketplace of ideas'

In his landmark dissent in Abrams v. United States, Justice Holmes argued that the best way to combat harmful ideas is through open competition—a principle that became foundational to modern First Amendment law.

'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.'

- Albert Einstein

'The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.'

- Marine biologist and environmentalist Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

'Fear of life closes off more opportunities for us than fear of death ever does.'

- Actress Agnes Moorehead (1900–1974)

1975: Betty Ford, remarks at the International Women's Year Conference

"Change, by its very nature, is threatening but it is also often productive."

'The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.'

-Writer J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)

Explore a feminist reading of Mary Cassatt's work

Artsy's Olivia Horn considers the American Impressionist's work from a 21st-century perspective, unpacking how her focus on women's lives was a revolutionary act for the 19th century that still resonates today.

'I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.'

- Modern nursing innovator Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)

'It's those who lie outside ordinary experience who have the most to teach us.'

- Author Malcolm Gladwell (1963 - present)

'The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.'

- Poet Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

'It might be that some day I shall be drowned by the sea, or die of pneumonia from sleeping out at night, or be robbed and strangled by strangers. These things happen. Even so, I shall be ahead because of trusting the beach, the night and strangers.'

-Janet Reno, the US' first female attorney general (1938-2016)

Jean-Paul Sartre believed 'existence precedes essence'

The existentialist figurehead argued that humans are not born with an identity or purpose; instead, they develop them throughout their lives. For Sartre, this meant making meaning for oneself rather than relying on authorities (like religion or government) to provide it.

'To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.'

- Diplomat Kofi Annan (1938-2018)