Literature

Aeschylus has Prometheus denounce the lord of heaven for unjustly punishing him for giving mankind the gift of fire (5thC BC)

After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, John Milton was concerned with both how the triumphalist monarchists would treat the English people and how the disheartened English people would face their descendants (1660)

Alexander Pope on how private “self love” can lead to the public good (1732)

Cato denounces generals like Julius Caesar who use success on the battlefield as a stepping stone to political power (1710)

Confucius edited this collection of poems which contains a poem about “Yellow Birds” who ravenously eat the crops of the local people, thus alienating them completely (520 BC)

Emerson on selecting the right gift to give at Christmas and New Year (1844)

Emerson on the right of self-ownership of slaves to themselves and to their labor (1863)

Erasmus argues that Philosophizing is all very well but there is also a need for there to be a Philosopher of the Kitchen (1518)

Harriet Martineau condemns tariffs as a “vicious aristocratic principle” designed to harm the ordinary working man and woman (1861)

In Measure for Measure, Shakespeare has Isabella denounce the Duke’s deputy for being corrupted by power, “it is excellent To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant” (1623)

In Joseph Addison’s play Cato, Cato is asked what it would take for him to be Caesar’s “friend” - his answer is that Caesar would have to first “disband his legions” and then “restore the commonwealth to liberty” (1713)

In Percy Shelley’s poem Liberty, liberty is compared to a force of nature sweeping the globe, where “tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night” which will disappear in “the van of the morning light” (1824)

In Shakespeare’s Henry V the king is too easily persuaded by his advisors that the English economy will continue to function smoothly, like obedient little honey-bees in their hive, while he is away with his armies conquering France (1598)

In Shakespeare’s Henry V the soldier Williams confronts the king by saying that “few die well that die in a battle” and that “a heavy reckoning” awaits the king that led them to it (1598)

In Shakespeare’s The Tempest Caliban complains about the way the European lord Prospero taught him language and science then enslaved him and dispossessed him of the island on which he was born (1611)

John Milton defends the right of freedom of the press and likens government censors to an “oligarchy” and a free press to a “flowery crop of knowledge” (1644)

John Milton in Paradise Regained has Christ deplore the “false glory” which comes from military conquest and the despoiling of nations in battle (1671)

John Milton laments the case of a people who won their liberty “in the field” but who then foolishly “ran their necks again into the yoke” of tyranny (1660)

John Milton on Satan’s Reign in Hell

John Milton on the tyranny of government licensed printing (1644)

John Milton on War and Peace

John Milton opposed censorship for many reasons but one thought sticks in the mind, that “he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself” (1644)

John Milton’s Advice to Kings

John Trenchard identifies who will benefit from any new war “got up” in Italy: princes, courtiers, jobbers, and pensioners, but definitely not the ordinary taxpayer (1722)

John Trenchard on the real nature of political parties (1721)

Lord Macaulay writes a devastating review of Southey’s Colloquies in which the Poet Laureate’s ignorance of the real condition of the working class in England is exposed (1830)

Lysistrata’s clever plan to end the war between Athens and Sparta (411 BC)

Macaulay and Bunyan on the evils of swearing and playing hockey on Sunday (1830)

Macaulay argues that “the main end” of government is the protection of persons and property (1839)

Macaulay argues that politicians are less interested in the economic value of public works to the citizens than they are in their own reputation, embezzlement and"jobs for the boys" (1830)

Macaulay wittily denounces a tyrannical priest as being an intermediate grub between sycophant and oppressor (1837)

Michel Montaigne on the danger of becoming accustomed to state power (1580)

Milton argues that a Monarchy wants the people to be prosperous only so it can better fleece them (1660)

Milton on Eve’s discovery of the benefits of the division of labor in the Garden of Eden (1667)

Milton on the ease with which tyrants find their academic defenders (1651)

Milton warns Parliament’s general Fairfax that justice must break free from violence if “endless war” is to be avoided (1648)

Montaigne argues that is right and proper for a people to speak ill of a “faulty prince” after his death (1580)

Montesquieu and law as a fishing net (1720)

Montesquieu states that the Roman Empire fell because the costs of its military expansion introduced corruption and the loyalty of its soldiers was transferred from the City to its generals (1734)

Montesquieu thought that commerce improves manners and cures “the most destructive prejudices” (1748)

Montesquieu was fascinated by the liberty which was enjoyed in England, which he attributed to security of person and the rule of law (1748)

On Achilles' new shield Vulcan depicts the two different types of cities which humans can build on earth; one based on peace and the rule of law; the other based on war, killing, and pillage (900 BC)

Percy Bysshe Shelley on the new Constitution of Naples which he hoped would be “as a mirror to make … blind slaves see” (1820)

Percy Shelley on the two types of property [1820]

Shakespeare has King Henry IV reflect on the reasons for invading the Holy Land, namely to distract people from domestic civil war and to “march all one way” under his banner (1597)

Shakespeare in Pericles on how the rich and powerful are like whales who eat up the harding working “little fish” (1608)

Shakespeare on sweet love remembered (1609)

Shakespeare on the ruler who has “the power to hurt and will do none” (1609)

Sven Forkbeard and new Yuletide Taxes (11thC)

The 2nd Day of Christmas: Petrarch on the mercenary wars in Italy and the need for peace on earth (1344)

The 4th Day of Christmas: Dante Alighieri on human perfectibility and peace on earth (1559)

The City of War and the City of Peace on Achilles' new shield (900 BC)

The Duke of Burgundy asks the Kings of France and England why “gentle peace” should not be allowed to return France to its former prosperity (1599)

Thomas Gordon asks whether tyranny is worse than anarchy (1728)

Thomas Gordon believes that bigoted Princes are subject to the “blind control” of other “Directors and Masters” who work behind the scenes (1737)

Thomas Gordon gives a long list of ridiculous and frivolous reasons why kings and tyrants have started wars which have led only to the enslavement and destruction of their own people (1737)

Voltaire in Candide says that “tending one’s own garden” is not only a private activity but also productive (1759)

Voltaire lampooned the excessively optimistic Leibnitzian philosophers in his philosophic tale Candide by exposing his characters to one disaster after another, like a tsunami in Lisbon, to show that this was not “the best of all possible worlds”

Voltaire on the Benefits which Trade and Economic Abundance bring to People living in the Present Age (1736)

William Shakespeare farewells his lover in a Sonnet using many mercantile and legal metaphors (1609)

With the return of spring the memories of Petrarch’s beloved Laura awaken a new pang in him (late 14thC)