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Considered by many to be the greatest English writer in history, Charles Dickens, like many great writers, battled depression for his entire life. It was said that he went through long periods of insomnia whenever he started a new novel.
To deal with his sleeplessness, Dickens would wander aimlessly around London, once covering 30 miles (48 km) in a single night. On the bright side, it’s been reported that his spirits would lift bit by bit as he made more and more progress on his stories.
Hannibal was one of the greatest generals and military strategists of Hellenistic history. He is most famous for traversing the Alps with an army of elephants.
The Carthaginian general, wildly successful for the first part of his career, eventually fell from grace after failing to capture Rome. After years of evading capture and essentially exiling himself, Hannibal took his own life by drinking poison he had kept in a capsule hidden on his ring.
Seneca the Younger, born 4 BCE, was not only an influential Stoic philosopher, but was also a chief advisor of notoriously cruel Roman emperor Nero. Following his philosophy, Seneca tried to influence Nero in a positive manner, but to no avail. Eventually, Seneca was tangled up in a plan to overthrow the emperor.
When Nero found out about this betrayal, he sentenced many former allies to exile, and even more to execution. Nero sent soldiers to Seneca’s home outside Rome and instructed him to kill himself for his betrayal. Seneca, like a true stoic, carried out these orders calmly and quietly, without much fuss.
Paul Lafargue, a famous political activist and Marxist thinker, was born in Cuba and spent most of his life in France. Known for his organization efforts and for penning the anti-labor manifesto 'The Right to Be Lazy,' brought his own life to a sudden and dramatic end.
In 1911, at the age of 69, LaFargue and his wife Laura injected themselves with cyanide and left a note claiming that this had been the plan for years. In the note, LaFargue said he had never planned on living past 70, and preferred to go before his body started to fail him. He had also written nine years earlier that he would take his life as soon as his money started to run out.
Abbie Hoffman, the legendary political activist, comedian, and member of the Chicago Seven, battled depression and bipolar disorder for most of his life. His clinical ailments, compounded with his dismay regarding the state of the world, led Hoffman to an early death at the age of 52.
On April 12, 1989, Hoffman was found dead in his home after taking a lethal dose of barbiturate drugs. Those close to him speculated that he was unable to face the beginnings of old age without seeing the change in the world that he had always dreamed of and fought for.
Gilles Deleuze, the prolific French philosopher, was revered and respected by many throughout his life. Michel Foucault called him “the only philosophical mind in France.” The ideas he put forth in books such as 'Anti-Oedipus' have influenced thinkers since the 1950s.
While Deleuze lived for 70 years, he battled respiratory problems since childhood, and had a lung removed in 1968 due to tuberculosis. By the 1990s, simple everyday tasks proved unbearably taxing, and in 1995 the philosopher threw himself out of his apartment window.
