1. Oscar Wilde, a writer and merciless wit of (mostly) the 19th century.
Napoleon Sarony / Library of Congress
Quotation from Oscar Wilde: The Major Works
(From Quora)
2. Maya Angelou, a writer who lays her sorrows bare.
Flickr: 65767546@N08
Quotation from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
3. Noam Chomsky, who challenged accepted ideas of linguistic theory.
Flickr: jeanbaptisteparis
Quotation from Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?
(From Quora)
4. bell hooks, an activist and scholar who does not accept the status quo.
drc.denison.edu / Creative Commons
Quotation from Feminism Is for Everybody
5. Louise Erdrich, a Native American writer who wrote in her debut novel that right and wrong "were shades of meaning, not sides of a coin."
Flickr: americanlibraries
Quotation from this essay
6. Salvador Dalí, a painter, here answering a question about why he drove in a car filled with cauliflower.
Flickr: 38256002@N06
Quotation from this 1958 interview with Mike Wallace
(From Quora)
7. Simone de Beauvoir, a 20th century feminist theorist who rejected norms of "womanhood."
Flickr: 53035820@N02
Quotation from The Second Sex, quoted in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
8. Lenny Bruce, a comedian whose obscene act paved the way for comedians' freedom of speech.
9. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Burmese activist and former political prisoner.
Flickr: worldeconomicforum
Quotation from her Nobel lecture
10. Frida Kahlo, a painter who defies classification.
