Primary texts

Library

Complete works in trusted public-domain translations — read them here, cover to cover, beside the thinkers and places they came from.

George Berkeley

A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge

First published 1710

3 chapters

David Hume

A Treatise of Human Nature

First published 1739

12 chapters

Mary Wollstonecraft

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

First published 1792

15 chapters

David Hume

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

First published 1748

12 chapters

Plato

Apology

Translated by Benjamin Jowett, 1892

2 chapters

Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil

Translated by Helen Zimmern, 1906

10 chapters

Voltaire

Candide

Translated by Anonymous (1918 Boni & Liveright edition), 1918

30 chapters

Augustine of Hippo

Confessions

Translated by E.B. Pusey, 1838

13 chapters

Plato

Crito

Translated by Benjamin Jowett, 1892

2 chapters

Laozi

Dao De Jing

Translated by James Legge, 1891

2 chapters

Baruch Spinoza

Ethics

Translated by R.H.M. Elwes, 1883

5 chapters

Immanuel Kant

Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals

Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, 1873

4 chapters

Thomas Hobbes

Leviathan

First published 1651

49 chapters

Marcus Aurelius

Meditations

Translated by George Long, 1862

12 chapters

René Descartes

Meditations on First Philosophy

Translated by John Veitch, 1853

9 chapters

John Stuart Mill

On Liberty

First published 1859

5 chapters

Confucius

The Analects

Translated by James Legge, 1861

20 chapters

Boethius

The Consolation of Philosophy

Translated by H.R. James, 1897

5 chapters

The Buddha

The Dhammapada

Translated by F. Max Müller, 1881

26 chapters

Epictetus

The Enchiridion

Translated by George Long, 1877

1 chapter

Niccolò Machiavelli

The Prince

Translated by W.K. Marriott, 1908

27 chapters

Omar Khayyam

The Rubaiyat

Translated by Edward FitzGerald, 1859

2 chapters

Every text in the library is in the public domain worldwide: the works are ancient or long out of copyright, and each translation was published before 1931 by a translator who died before 1956. Provenance and any changes we made are recorded on each book's page.