The prophet Samuel tells the people of Israel what lies in store for them if they have their wish granted that a King rule over them:
The Gospels draw heavily on the Book of Isaiah for a utopic view of the world. The famous “swords to plowshares” quote is but one of its famous proclamations:
In one of the 150 poems, songs, and prayers from the Old Testament’s Book of Psalms, King David writes:
Voltaire’s poem celebrating the fact that he was living in an age of developing commerce and markets:
In 1820, John Taylor was concerned that the promise of the American constitution, to radically limit the power of the central state, was being undermined by interventionist economic policies:
In a lecture given to the Freedom School in Colorado Springs in 1963, the Italian liberal jurist Bruno Leoni examines the differences between satisfying needs through voluntary cooperation (i.e. the market) and coercion (i.e. voting):
Thomas Hodgskin was forced to leave the British Navy after being physically punished for complaining about the brutal treatment of sailors who been impressed (conscripted):
After a series of debates in parliament in early 1628, Sir Edward Coke wrote and got adopted one of the founding documents securing the liberties of Englishmen:
In the Foreword to the Liberty Fund edition of Algernon Sidney’s Discourses, Thomas G. West discusses the importance of Sidney’s work to the American Founding Fathers:
In his magisterial history of the American Revolution, Bernhard Knollenberg remarks upon the problems facing the Continental Congress in September 1774:
In his translation of Samuel Pufendorf’s treatise on natural law, The Whole Duty of Man (1691, 1718), Jean Barbeyrac included a number of essays and commentaries. In one, a “Discourse on the Benefits Conferred by the Laws”, he made the following observation:
In 1988, Robert Nisbet gave a series of lectures to celebrate the bicentennial of the American Constitution. He reflected on what the Framers would be most struck by in America today and concluded that they would be incredulous at the staggering size of the military establishment and the Leviathan-like size of the national government:
In a discussion of how taxes diminish a nation’s “opulence”, Adam Smith has some interesting observations on the drinking habits of Europeans:
Adam Smith wrote this letter to Lord Shelburne reporting on the progress of young Mr. Fitzmaurice’s education:
This passage comes from Lecture 16 of Adam Smith’s Lectures on Rhetoric which he gave at the University of Glasgow in 1762:
In a lecture on Astronomy, Adam Smith explores the range of feelings one feels when observing the wonders of nature and the beauties of the physical world:
This passage comes from a chapter entitled “Of the Origin of Ambition and of the Distinction of Ranks” in Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759):
This passage comes from Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the the Wealth of Nations and is perhaps one of his most famous quotations (1776):
In a sermon given in 1789, Richard Price distinguished between “true” and “false” patriotism, namely between love of one;s country and the “spirit of rivalship”:
This passage comes from Hugo Grotius, The Law of War and Peace (1625), Book III Chapter 12, “On Moderation in Despoiling an Enemy’s Country” (1625):
This passage comes from George Washington’s “Farewell Address” given on September 19, 1796:
This passage comes from Remark L by Bernard Mandeville in The Fable of the Bees or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits (1732):
The USA cable channel made a remake (first done brilliantly by Stanley Kubrick over 40 years ago) of the story of “Spartacus” who led a slave revolt against the Roman Empire. Here is what one of our authors (Thomas Gordon from Cato’s Letters (1721)) has to say about Spartacus, in comparison with Julius Caesar: