1908–1997 · American humorist, lexicographer & political scientist
Leo Rosten (born in Łódź, brought to the United States as a toddler) earned a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago and studied at the London School of Economics before becoming one of America’s most quoted popular essayists. He is best remembered for The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N (1937) and The Joys of Yiddish (1968), but he also wrote and lectured widely on ethics and purpose. His insistence that a life is measured by usefulness rather than happiness became his signature argument — and, ironically, the one idea of his that the internet reassigned to someone more famous.