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Birthdate:
-January 17, 1706

Nationality:
-American

Major works:
-As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove.

Ideas/significance:
-Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and was one of its signers. He also represented the United States in France during the American Revolution.
-Franklin was interested in proving traditional religious beliefs through scientific experimentation. Franklin believed in a democratic form of government.

2-3 Quotes:
-“A penny saved is a penny earned.”
-“Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.”
-"He that lies down with Dogs, shall rise up with fleas."

Friends/intellectual contemporaries:
-Franklin was friends with Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Samuel Adams, James Madison, William Keith (the governor of Pennsylvania) and some important European thinkers like Hume and Priestley.

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Birthdate: 26 april 1711

Nationality: scottish

Major works: A Treatise of Human Nature and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Ideas/significance: David Hume is famous for the elegance of his prose, for his radical empiricism and for his skepticism of religion

2-3 Quotes:  Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.        A propensity to  hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty

Friends/intellectual contemporaries:

David Hume and Adam Smith were leading thinkers of the 1700s, and their ideas continue to influence us to this day.

They were also close friends for more than twenty-five years, and their friendship was a source of strength to both.

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Birthdate:
August 29, 1632

Nationality:
English

Major works:
His most famous works include “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” , in which he developed his theory of ideas and his account of the origins of human knowledge in experience, and “Two Treatises of Government”, in which he defended a theory of political authority based on natural individual rights and freedoms and the consent of the governed.

Ideas/significance:
He was an inspirer of both the European Enlightenment and the Constitution of the United States. His philosophical thinking was close to that of the founders of modern science, especially Robert Boyle, Sir Isaac Newton, and other members of the Royal Society. His political thought was grounded in the notion of a social contract between citizens and in the importance of toleration, especially in matters of religion.

2-3 Quotes:
“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours."

“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.”

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not common.”

Friends/intellectual contemporaries:
John Locke was good friends with people such as Issac Newton and England's intellectual elite.

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Birthdate: June 1723

Nationality: British and Scottish

Major works:
Wrote the 'Wealth of Nations'

Ideas/significance:
- Father of Economics

- Adam Smith was among the first philosophers of his time to declare that wealth is created through productive labor, and that self-interest motivates people to put their resources to the best use

2-3 Quotes:
- "Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor"

- "What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?"

- "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."

Friends/intellectual contemporaries:

- David Hume (a fellow philosopher) - leading think of the 1700's

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Birthdate: June 28 1712

Nationality: Switzerland

Major works:  Inequality (1755)  The Social Contract (1762) The New Eloise (1761) On Education (1762)  autobiographical Confessions (1782–1789)

Ideas/significance: Revolutionary and Direct democracy, he also belived that A proper education is one that allows Nature to teach humans according to their nature.

2-3 Quotes: “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.”   “Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”  “The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.”

Friends/intellectual contemporaries: Therese Levasseur, Condillac and Diderot

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Birthdate: January 18, 1689

Nationality: French

Major works: "Persian Letters" (Lettres Persanes)
- Satirical work which critiqued French society, politics and, culture.
"The Spirit of the Laws" (De l'esprit des lois)
- Most famous work which explored separation of powers, political governance and forms of government.

Ideas/significance: Montesquieu is arguably best known for his idea of the separation of powers. His argument is that a governing power should be split into different branches to prevent one particular group from becoming too powerful and abusing said power. This concept helped to form modern democratic systems.

2-3 Quotes:

“There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in
the name of justice.”

“Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.”

Friends/intellectual contemporaries:
- Voltaire
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
-Benjamin Franklin

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Birthdate:
5 October 1713

Nationality:
French

Major works:
Encyclopédie

Ideas/significance:
Described the mechanical arts
skeptical of stories in the bible

2-3 Quotes:

Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

Friends/intellectual companions:

Jean le Rond d'Alembert
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Birthdate:
-November 21, 1694

Nationality:
-French

Major works:
- Adélaïde du Guesclin
- Alzire

Ideas/significance:
- crusader against tyranny and bigotry,
- argued for religious tolerance and freedom of thought
-campaigned to eradicate priestly and aristo-monarchical authority, and supported a constitutional monarchy that protects people's rights of speech

Quotes:
-“Those who can make people believe absurdities, can make people commit atrocities.”
-“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
-“When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”

Friends/intellectual companions:
-Mme. Marie Louise Mignot