[G]entlemen, it is a fact, that every philosopher of eminence for the two last centuries has either been murdered, or, at the least, been very near it; insomuch, that if a man calls himself a philosopher, and never had his life attempted, rest assured there is nothing in him[.]

Thomas De Quincey, ‘On Murder, Considered as One of the Fine Arts’, Blackwood’s Magazine, vol. 21, no. 122 (February, 1827), p. 203