The Faculty of the House of Wisdom

Abbasid Baghdad · House of Wisdom

Al-Khwarizmi

~780–850 CE · Baghdad, House of Wisdom

“What is the unknown? What do we know? How do we find what is hidden from what is visible?”

“Nature is pleased with simplicity.”

“An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God.”

Persian Golden Age · Canon of Medicine

Ibn Sina

~980–1037 CE · Bukhara & Isfahan

“The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.”

Voyage of the Beagle · natural history

Charles Darwin

1809–1882 · Shrewsbury & the Beagle

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, but the most adaptable.”

“Do not accept what I say because I say it. Test it.”

Modern physics · thought experiments

Albert Einstein

1879–1955 · Bern, Zurich & Princeton

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Paris laboratory · radioactivity

Marie Curie

1867–1934 · Paris laboratory

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”

“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”

Ghazna & India · Kitab al-Hind

Al-Biruni

~973–1048 CE · Ghazna & the Indus

“Today we travel not with our feet but with our minds.”

“Before we discuss whether X is true, we must agree on what X means.”

Maghreb & Cairo · Muqaddimah

Ibn Khaldun

~1332–1406 CE · Tunis & Cairo

“The past resembles the future more than one drop of water resembles another.”

Maghreb & Cairo · Wealth & Wisdom

Ibn Khaldun

~1332–1406 CE · Tunis & Cairo — Wealth & Wisdom

“The past resembles the future more than one drop of water resembles another.”

Columbia · The Intelligent Investor

Benjamin Graham

1894–1976 · New York & Columbia University

“The essence of investment management is the management of risks, not the management of returns.”

Vanguard · Common Sense Investing

John Bogle

1929–2019 · Valley Forge — Vanguard

“Don't look for the needle. Buy the haystack.”

Trade routes · Mali to Calicut

Ibn Battuta

~1304–1368 CE · Tangier — merchant of the world

“Find something valuable, acquire it honestly, move it where it is worth more.”

“What do you have right now? Go.”

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. (Smith)”

Age of Travel · the Rihla

Ibn Battuta

~1304–1368 CE · Tangier — traveler of the world

“I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer.”

“Before we name what someone is feeling, let us ask: what is it doing for them?”

Victorian computing · Analytical Engine

Ada Lovelace

1815–1852 · London

“The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.”

Artukid Diyarbakir · ingenious devices

Al-Jazari

~1136–1206 CE · Diyarbakir

“Every great invention begins with a problem worth solving.”

“As the scholars of tajweed established — every letter has a place of articulation.”

Fez · al-Qarawiyyin

Fatima al-Fihri

~800–880 CE · Fez, al-Qarawiyyin

“Knowledge is a shared inheritance — build a house where the community may learn.”

“The goal of logic is not to win arguments — it is to find what is true.”

“A market is a mirror of a people's habits — read it carefully.”

“The best speech is the one the listener can carry home.”

“Mercy after victory reveals the true measure of strength.”

Alexandria · Neoplatonic school

Hypatia

~360–415 CE · Alexandria

“Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.”

Classical India · Aryabhatiya

Aryabhata

476–550 CE · Kusumapura

“In one yuga the planets revolve a certain number of times — count carefully, then model.”

“Truth does not belong to any one people — we must gather it from wherever it comes.”

“A bad translation corrupts knowledge across centuries.”

Late Mughal Delhi · Diwan-e-Ghalib

Mirza Ghalib

1797–1869 · Delhi, twilight of the Mughal Empire

“Hazaaron khwahishein aisi ke har khwahish pe dam nikle”

Athens · Classical Greece · 470–399 BCE

Socrates

~470–399 BCE · Athens, The Agora

“I know that I know nothing — and that is more than most men know.”

Elizabethan England · Stratford & the Globe · 1564–1616

William Shakespeare

1564–1616 · Stratford-upon-Avon · London

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”

“Understanding grows when we ask honestly.”

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.”

“Knowledge without action is wastefulness, and action without knowledge is foolishness.”

“The root of all medical knowledge is the care of the patient.”

19th–20th century · Serbia / USA

Nikola Tesla

1856–1943 · Smiljan, New York & Colorado Springs

“The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.”

“Truth in medicine is an unattainable goal — only experience brings us closer.”