Famous Creative Thinkers That Made the World a Better Place
Throughout history, famous philosophers have shaped our culture and way of life. Famous creative thinkers are not necessarily regarded as philosophers, but in my opinion, they should be.
Artists, authors, and famous creative thinkers in history have shaped the cultural zeitgeist through their creative works. These famous deep thinkers have over time become some of history's greatest thinkers, challenging society to think more broadly and have greater compassion for themselves and those around them.
1. Marcel Proust and the madeleine moment
Marcel Proust was a French author and can be considered a French philosopher of the 20th century. His book, À la Recherche du Temps Perdu or In Search of Lost Time, unearthed how memory works in the human brain. He theorized that emotions are the core of our memories and that memories themselves are not an unalterable fact but change according to our emotional state.
The most famous moment of the book, the "madeleine moment" sometimes called a "Proustian moment", summarized this theory of emotion and memory when the main character recalled an early childhood memory based on the taste of a madeleine.
Marcel Proust's madeleine quote shows how involuntary memory can be:
“No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me.”
The quotes from his intimate letters to friends also explain his theories about life in greater detail. As a great thinker, he popularized theories about love between lovers, love for life, daily gratitude, and reveling in the present moment.
In subsequent books and quotes to the press, he exposed his theories about creativity and writing, cementing his place as one of the most famous French philosophers and creatives in history.
2. Gustav Flaubert and a simple heart
In the 19th century, Flaubert had some pretty radical ideas about life. After his debut novel, Madame Bovary, the French author became one of the greatest thinkers in France.
He cemented his position as a prominent French philosopher of the 20th century with his novel, A Simple Heart. Sometimes called A Simple Soul by Gustav Flaubert, captures the life, struggles, and inner fantasies of Felicitie, a kind-hearted servant who lives a simple but honorary life.
Gustav Flaubert's books always aim to uncover central truths. He is one of the greatest famous French creative thinkers because he lends a sympathetic ear to the struggles of ordinary people. Although Emma in Madame Bovary is insufferable and shallow, we empathize with her because of the cruel and materialistic society we all live in.
In A Simple Soul, we empathize with Felicitie because she embodies everything on a soul level we wish to be. Flaubert is an expert at flipping our thinking. When we want to chastise someone, he implores us to be kind. When we want to celebrate our society's ideal of a woman, we are called to question if this ideal is really admirable.
Flaubert ultimately became a top philosopher in the cultural zeitgeist for his astute observations of how things should be, rather than how a society thinks they ought to be.
3. Emily Bronte on love and friendship
In the 19th century, Emily Bronte shocked the Victorian world by releasing her debut novel, Wuthering Heights while writing under a pseudonym. A mix of the grotesque and beauty of nature, Bronte was the first woman to write such a deeply shocking and exposing book.
Although her real genius comes out in her poetry, where she writes about the human experience of love, loss, and friendship. The poems by Emily Bronte expose the depth of her heart and call us to question how we approach love and friendship on a fundamental level.
Of all the quotes from Emily Bronte, the poem Love and Friendship contains one of my favorite quote:
“Love is like the wild rose-briar, Friendship like the holly-tree— The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, But which will bloom most constantly?”
Although Bronte is not considered a famous philosopher, to me she perfectly encapsulates the genius of famous feminist thinkers and other great famous English thinkers. Her poems remind us that friendship is in itself a powerful force of love and that the love we seek should be sturdy and everlasting like ivy, not lustful and fickle like the rose.
4. Hegel's Dialectic
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was an 18th-century German philosopher. His theories centered around consciousness and how as a society we tend to repeat historical "karmic" lessons until they are learned.
In Hegel's dialectic, Hegel proposes that in order for a culture to accept something as the norm, it first must oscillate like a pendulum between a counter-movement and a synthesis of both options, before finding harmony in the middle.
One of history's greatest thinkers, Hegel understood the human psyche and our visceral internal reaction to change. For the western audience of the time, this profoundly eastern approach to accepting change and allowing time and emotions to evolve to find peace and harmony was almost unheard of.
Ultimately, Hegel understood that knowing how events in history occur is fundamental to our evolution as a human species.
Famous critical thinkers in history have one thing in common: their ability to change the opinions of those around them for the better. These great thinkers in history had no hidden agenda for power or money, they simply wanted to tell stories to help improve the lives of those around them.
To receive wisdom, our minds must be open to all possibilities. These famous philosophers and creative thinkers were able to pry open our minds and allow us to dream of worlds that do not exist and make them a reality.
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I went down a rabbit hole to discover what we really need to be creative and how to balance it all.