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Online Library of Liberty The OLL is a curated collection of scholarly works that engage with vital questions of liberty.

Spanning the centuries from Hammurabi to Hume, and collecting material on topics from art and economics to law and political theory, the OLL provides you with a rich variety of texts to explore and consider.

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Explore the OLL Collection: Quotations About Liberty and Power The Jesuit priest and political philosopher Edward Bellarmine grapples with the problem of a subject’s obedience to kings or popes (1610)

The Jesuit priest and political philosopher Edward Bellarmine constructs a dialogue between “the people” and “the Pope” in which the Pope thinks of Christ as the Lord who owns the flock of sheep, himself as the shepherd, the people as the “little sheep” at the very bottom, and the Kings who rule over the people are the “rams” who might at any time turn into “wolves”:

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Explore the OLL Collection: Images of Liberty and Power William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job

Related Links in the GSR: Job Related Links: Book of Job William Blake Book of Job. We include a number of his illustrations here and a full list.

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Liberty Matters: A Forum for the Discussion of Ideas About Liberty Mikko Tolonen, Mandeville, Hayek, and the Politics of Self-Esteem

Welcome to our October 2020 edition of Liberty Matters. In this essay and discussion forum Mikko Tolonen, Associate Professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Helsinki, discusses the work of Bernard Mandeville, one of the most original thinkers and personalities of the 18th century. Tolonen discusses various aspects of Mandeville’s thought, in particular the insight concerning people’...

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Best of the OLL BOLL 26: Lao Tzu, “The Tao of Governing” (6thC BC)

This is part of “The Best of the Online Library of Liberty” which is a collection of some of the most important material in the OLL. A thematic list with links to HTML versions of the texts is available here. This is a collection of 16 passages from Lao Tzu’s Tao-te Ching which is a collection of maxims designed to guide the actions of “the wise ruler.” He recommends that rulers not use violenc...

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