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The list

Books, A to Z

Every book and text on our list, 59 of them, by title, each with the ideas it carries.

Earliest the earliest source we can find Echoes same idea, no credit found Cites credits an earlier source by name Conflicts argues against it per a summary: we have it secondhand

A

  1. Aesop’s Fables

    c. 550 BCE

  2. Anasakti Yoga

    M. K. Gandhi, 1929

    Gujarati, 1929; in English as The Gospel of Selfless Action, 1946

  3. Aphorisms

    Hippocrates (attributed), c. 400 BCE

  4. As a Man Thinketh

    James Allen, 1903

  5. Atomic Habits

    James Clear, 2018

  6. Autobiography

    Benjamin Franklin, 1791

B

  1. Bhagavad Gita

    2nd c. BCE to 2nd c. CE

    from the Mahabharata

C

  1. Cognitive Therapy of Depression

    Aaron T. Beck, 1979

    with Rush, Shaw and Emery

  2. The Conquest of Happiness

    Bertrand Russell, 1930

D

  1. De Brevitate Vitae, see On the Shortness of Life

  2. Dhammapada

    3rd to 1st c. BCE

    Buddhist canon

  3. Discourse on Method

    René Descartes, 1637

E

  1. Enchiridion

    Epictetus, c. 125 CE

    The Handbook, written up by Arrian

  2. Essays

    Michel de Montaigne, 1580 to 1588

  3. Essays, First Series

    Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841

  4. Ethics

    Baruch Spinoza, 1677

F

  1. Four Thousand Weeks

    Oliver Burkeman, 2021

G

  1. The Gift of Fear

    Gavin de Becker, 1997

  2. Gospel of Mark

    c. 65 to 75 CE

  3. Gospel of Matthew

    c. 80 to 90 CE

  4. The Gospel of Selfless Action, see Anasakti Yoga

H

  1. Habits, The 7, see The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

  2. Hamlet

    William Shakespeare, 1600

  3. The Handbook, see Enchiridion

  4. Happiness

    Carl Hilty, 1891

  5. How to Be a Stoic

    Massimo Pigliucci, 2017

  6. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

    Dale Carnegie, 1948

  7. The Human Machine

    Arnold Bennett, 1908

I

  1. The Imitation of Christ

    Thomas à Kempis, 1427

K

  1. Karma-Yoga

    Swami Vivekananda, 1896

L

  1. Letter to John Adams

    Thomas Jefferson, 1816

M

  1. The Majesty of Calmness

    William George Jordan, 1898

  2. Man’s Search for Meaning

    Viktor E. Frankl, 1946

  3. Meditations

    Marcus Aurelius, c. 170 to 180 CE

  4. Moral Letters

    Seneca, c. 64 CE

N

  1. Nicomachean Ethics

    Aristotle, c. 335 to 322 BCE

O

  1. The Obstacle Is the Way

    Ryan Holiday, 2014

  2. Odes

    Horace, 23 BCE

  3. On the Shortness of Life

    Seneca, c. 49 CE

    De Brevitate Vitae

  4. One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

    Robert Maurer, 2004

P

  1. The Pleasures of Life

    John Lubbock, 1887

  2. The Power of Now

    Eckhart Tolle, 1997

  3. The Power of Positive Thinking

    Norman Vincent Peale, 1952

  4. The Principles of Psychology

    William James, 1890

  5. Psalm 90

    by the 2nd c. BCE

  6. Pushing to the Front

    Orison Swett Marden, 1894

R

  1. The Rambler

    Samuel Johnson, 1751

  2. Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy

    Albert Ellis, 1962

  3. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

    Omar Khayyam, c. 1120

S

  1. The Science of Getting Rich

    Wallace D. Wattles, 1910

  2. The Secret

    Rhonda Byrne, 2006

  3. Self-Help

    Samuel Smiles, 1859

  4. The Serenity Prayer

    Reinhold Niebuhr, as printed by Winnifred Wygal, 1933

  5. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

    Stephen R. Covey, 1989

  6. The Seven Points of Mind Training

    Chekawa Yeshe Dorje, 12th century

  7. The Story of Philosophy

    Will Durant, 1926

T

  1. Tao Te Ching

    Laozi (attributed), c. 300 BCE

  2. Think and Grow Rich

    Napoleon Hill, 1937

  3. Tusculan Disputations

    Cicero, 45 BCE

W

  1. The War of Art

    Steven Pressfield, 2002

  2. A Way of Life

    William Osler, 1913

  3. ‘Why you should define your fears instead of your goals’

    Tim Ferriss, 2017

    a TED talk

  4. Works and Days

    Hesiod, c. 700 BCE