Welcome to the Online Library of Liberty

The OLL brings books and ideas together so they can converse with each other and with you. We’ve gathered together collections of texts from historical movements and about big ideas that have changed the world to make it easier to allow our texts to “talk” to each other.

Featured Titles

an ANSWER to a PAMPHLET, entitled Taxation no Tyranny. addressed to the AUTHOR, and to PERSONS IN POWER

Anonymous Pamphleteer 1775 (author)

As with other respondents to Johnson’s Taxation No Tyranny, the author of this pamphlet takes on Johnson’s towering literary reputation head on, asserting in his second sentence, “The very title of your pamphlet is delusion.” The…

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Some Love Songs

Francesco Petrarch (author)

A collection of 49 poems, mostly love poems to his friend Laura.

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Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers

M.J.C. Vile (author)

Arguably no political principle has been more central than the separation of powers to the evolution of constitutional governance in Western democracies. M. J. C. Vile traces the history of the doctrine from its rise during the…

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Essays Moral, Political, Literary (LF ed.)

David Hume (author)

This edition of Hume’s much neglected philosophical essays contains the thirty-nine essays included in Essays, Moral, and Literary, that made up Volume I of the 1777 posthumous Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. It also…

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The Reading Room

The OLL blog explores the fascinating, vital, and often surprising texts and people that fill our library. Come talk in our library!

Future of Liberty Podcast Notes: Katherine Mangu-Ward on politics

By: Amy Willis

In the second episode of Liberty Fund’s new Future of Liberty podcast, hosted by Mitch Daniels, Daniels welcomes Reason magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward to discuss the ever changing role of journalism in a free society.
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Liberty Matters

The OLL brings people together to debate and discuss important texts and big ideas about liberty.

Classical Liberals on Race (August/September 2024)

By: OLL Editor

Many classical liberals have been silent or passive when it comes to racism’s pernicious effects. Others have twisted or misunderstood classical liberalism to justify racist words and deeds.
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Money & Banking

It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove, that wealth does not consist in money or in gold and silver, but in what money purchases.

Adam Smith
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Philosophy

Love is an affection which carries the attention of the mind beyond itself, and is the sense of a relation to some fellow-creature as to its object. Being a complacency and a continued satisfaction in this object, it has, independent…

Adam Ferguson
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Economics

In the payment of the interest of the publick debt, it has been said, it is the right hand which pays the left. [52] The money does not go out of the country. It is only a part of the revenue of one set of the inhabitants which is…

Adam Smith
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References and Guides

Mandeville: His Life and Work

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Works by Bernard de Mandevile

Source: Editor's Introduction to Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, 2 vols. With a Commentary Critical, Historical, and Explanatory by F.B. Kaye (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988). Vol. 1.

INTRODUCTION

I. LIFE…

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Kalidasa: Life and Works

Source: Introduction to Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works, by Arthur W. Ryder (London: J.M. Dent, 1920).

INTRODUCTION . KALIDASA—HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS

Kalidasa probably lived in the fifth century of the Christian era. This date, approximate as it is, must yet be given with…

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Chronology: the Life and Times of William Penn

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William Penn Collections: Political Theory Collections: Religious Toleration

Source: In The Political Writings of William Penn, introduction and annotations by Andrew R. Murphy (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002).

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Emerson on Anti-slavery

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a passionate opponent of slavery. Scattered throughout volume 11 of his collected works are essays and speeches on this topic. Here are a list of them:

Address On Emancipation In the British West Indies (August 1844). Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Works of Ralph Waldo…

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Shakespeare: Liberty and Responsibility

This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Liberty and Sovereignty in Four Shakespearean Tragedies.”

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John Milton: Liberty in his Prose and Poetry

This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Liberty in the Poetry and Prose of John Milton.”

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Forgotten Gems

Over the course of time some particularly noteworthy essays, chapters or sections of books are forgotten. This section is an attempt to revive these “forgotten gems”.

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An Introduction to the Major Writings of Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)

The Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) wrote widely on matters such as highly technical works on monetary theory as well as journalistic pieces designed for a broader audience. Here is an annotated list of some of his major writings which have been…

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Socialism: A Study Guide and Reader

Introduction

This Study Guide examines the long-standing clash between Socialism and Marxism, and Classical Liberalism over the past 200 years or so. It provides a brief history of the tradition, some of its main criticisms of the free market, the classical liberalresponse to these criticisms,…

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