Novelist David Herbert Lawrence (1885–1930) was born in the village of Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, the fourth child of a poor coal miner. A sickly boy with a fierce mind, he earned a college scholarship and briefly taught before discovering his true calling as a writer. His first novel, White Peacock (1911), hinted at the fire to come.

“The dead don't die. They look on and help,” he once wrote, revealing the mystical undercurrent of his work. Lawrence was known for his passionate prose, exploring how people love, create, and seek fulfillment. “Start with the sun and the rest will slowly, slowly happen,” he advised, urging us to live boldly and trust the natural rhythm of life.

Unflinching in his honesty, he believed in accepting our whole selves: “It's no good casting out devils… They belong to us, we must accept them and be at peace with them.” His notorious Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)—banned in England and the U.S.—celebrated sensual love as sacred and human, bringing him fame and controversy alike.

“Sex and beauty are inseparable,” he wrote. “Beauty is an experience, nothing else… Even the plainest person can look beautiful, can be beautiful.”

Despite his early death from tuberculosis, Lawrence left a legacy of wonder. “Even the real scientist works in the sense of wonder,” he wrote, reminding us that curiosity and reverence keep us truly alive.

His words still stir us to this day: to live authentically, to seek truth, and to honor the quiet, inward voice of freedom.

Named to the Top 100 Writers of the 20th Century, D. H. Lawrence wrote with the kind of fire that still inspires. Click to meet the rest of these visionaries.