KAREL CAPEK

This Czech sci-fi writer is best-known for his works RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots), a dystopian play where robot (he used the Czech word for "work" to name those developed devices!) droids are completely subservient to humankind (like in WALL-E!) and rise up against their human masters... and The War Against the Newts (a real book with this title!), which features a similar scenario of oppression and revolution, but with tailed amphibians instead of the robots.

RUR can be read here:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/capek/karel/rur/contents.html
The War On the Newts can be read here:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601981h.html


For something completely different, here's some René Descartes:



And a sarcophagus: