Philosophy is not a closed club or a secret society. It's for anyone who thinks big questions are worth talking about. To get us started, Douglas Groothuis unpacks seven pivotal sentences from the history of western philosophy—a few famous, all short, none trivial. Included are:

• Socrates—The unexamined life is not worth living.
• Augustine—You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
• Descartes—I think, therefore I am.
• Pascal—The heart has reasons, that reason knows nothing of.

Protagoras, Aristotle and Kierkegaard round out this quick tour.Since every philosopher has a story, not just a series of ideas, Groothuis also offers a bit of each one's life to set the stage. The seven sterling sentences themselves, while they can't tell us all there is to know, offer bridges into other lands of thought which can spark new ideas and adventures. And who knows where they might lead?

The accessible primers in the Introductions in Seven Sentences collection act as brief introductions to an academic field, with simple organization: seven key sentences that give readers a birds-eye view of an entire discipline.