Dover Publications imprint: 4855 books

"I have the simplest tastes," remarked Oscar Wilde. "I am always satisfied with the best." In this superlative collection of quotations by the great Irish playwright and wit, readers will find the very best of Wilde's scintillating comments on art, human nature, morals, society, politics, history,...

Although Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) created a wide range of poetry, essays, and fairy tales (and one novel) in his brief, tragic life, he is perhaps best known as a dramatist. His witty, clever drama, populated by brilliant talkers skilled in the art of riposte and paradox, are still staples of the...

Outraged by the sexual perversity of this one-act tragedy, Great Britain's Lord Chamberlain banned Salomé from the national stage. Symbolist poets and writers — Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice Maeterlinck among them — defended the play's literary brilliance. Beyond its notoriety, the drama's...

"This is a very entertaining collection of optical illusions, full of pictures that will leave you scratching your head as you try to figure out how they've fooled you. There are loads of them, and it's the best optical illusion book I've come across." — Bertass Reviews Anything/World...

"The Cosmic Code can be read by anyone. I heartily recommend it!" — The New York Times Book Review "A reliable guide for the nonmathematical reader across the highest ridges of physical theory. Pagels is unfailingly lighthearted and confident." — Scientific American "A...

Among the first of Sigmund Freud's many contributions to psychology and psychoanalysis was The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1900, and considered his greatest work — even by Freud himself. Aware, however, that it was a long and difficult book, he resolved to compile a more concise and accessible...

Although he was born into slavery and endured a permanent physical disability, Epictetus (ca. 50–ca. 130 AD) maintained that all people are free to control their lives and to live in harmony with nature. We will always be happy, he argued, if we learn to desire that things should be exactly as they...

The ne plus ultra of Stoicism, Discourses outline clear-cut principles of right conduct and true thinking, offering secular thinkers a mode of reasoning that dismisses the strictures of absolutism and emotionalism in exchange for a more peaceful and productive life. The Discourses report wide-ranging discussions between Epictetus and his students.

In this compilation of Books 3 and 4 of Epictetus' Discourses — the second of a two-volume set — the philosopher discusses the quest for freedom, the nature of solitude, cynicism, fear, discretion, the avoidance of quarrels, and other subjects of enduring interest and concern.

The great pessimist who believed in the best and expected the worst from writers here applies his caustic wit to literature and the literary scene. Schopenhauer's piercing analyses of style, critics, literary values, learning, and genius make this volume a handbook on writing ― illuminated by the...

Written in 1888, while Nietzsche was at the height of his brilliance, these 2 polemics blaze with provocative, inflammatory rhetoric. Nietzsche's "grand declaration of war," Twilight of the Idols examines what we worship and why. In addition to its full-scale attack on Christianity and Jesus Christ, The Antichrist denounces organized religion as a whole.

A leading German metaphysician of the 19th century, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) exerted an influence far beyond the hermetic world of philosophy, with adherents ranging from Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche to Leo Tolstoy and Thomas Mann. Among Schopenhauer's chief contributions to the...

When Karl Marx declared religion the opium of the people, he voiced a central tenet of the philosophy that bears his name. In this collection of essays and letters by Marx and his colleague, Friedrich Engels, the founders of Marxism discuss their perspectives on the origins and essence of religion. These...

All human behaviors and traits, according to this 1923 study, derive from the complicated interactions of three elements of the psyche: the id, the ego, and the superego. The root of Sigmund Freud's approach to psychiatric treatment resides in bringing the id, the hidden source of human passion, to...