Philosophy
The Twilight of the Idols
Read by D.E. Wittkower
Friedrich Nietzsche
Of The Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo: “If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how everything before my tim…
Leviathan (Books I and II)
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Thomas Hobbes
Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly called Leviathan, is a book written in 1651…
Heretics
Read by Ray Clare
G. K. Chesterton
The Author Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on the 29th of May, 1874. Though he considered himself a mere "rollicki…
Ecce Homo
Read by TimSC
Friedrich Nietzsche
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's autobiography, Ecce Homo, was the last prose work that he wrote before his illness in 1889. Coming at …
Stoicism
Read by Leon Mire
St. George William Joseph Stock
This short book is part of the Philosophies Ancient and Modern series, which attempts to make Western philosophy more accessible to the gene…
Reflections on War and Death
Read by D.E. Wittkower
Sigmund Freud
Anyone, as Freud tells us in Reflections on War and Death, forced to react against his own impulses may be described as a hypocrite, whether…
Democracy in America Vol. I
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Alexis De Tocqueville
When Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s he found a thriving democracy of a kind he had not seen anywhere else. Many of his insightful …
Of the Shortness of Life
Read by Jonathan Hockey
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Seneca the Younger wrote the moral essay "De Brevitate Vitae" — "On the Shortness of Life" — to his friend Paulinus. The…
Kitab Adab al-Dunya w'al-Din (The Ethics of Religion and of this World)
Read by Youssef Safiljil (Dr. Fighter)
Abu al-Hasan Ali Ibn Muhammad Ibn Habib al-Mawardi
Al-Mawardi (Alboacen) was one of the famous Islamic authors and jurists. He was a well-known man in the “Abbassid” empire—a mature thinker w…
Meditations on First Philosophy
Read by D.E. Wittkower
René Descartes
After several years working on a treatise putting forth his mechanistic philosophy and physics, Descartes shelved the project when his conte…
The Prince (Version 3)
Read by Bob Neufeld
Niccolò Machiavelli
The Prince (Italian: Il Principe) is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavel…
The Joyful Wisdom (or: The Gay Science)
Read by TimSC
Friedrich Nietzsche
"The Joyful Wisdom," written in 1882, just before "Zarathustra," is rightly judged to be one of Nietzsche's best books. …
Two Treatises of Civil Government
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John Locke
The Two Treatises of Civil Government is a work of political philosophy published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke. The First Treatise is a…
The Enchiridion of Epictetus
Read by D.E. Wittkower
Epictetus
Epictetus (Greek: Επίκτητος; c.55–c.135) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. The name given by his parents, if one was given, is not known - the …
Anticipations
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H. G. Wells
Wells considered this book one of his most important, a natural follow-up to such works as his Man of the Year Million and The Time Machine.…
The Tao Teh King
Read by Eric S. Piotrowski
Laozi 老子 and Lao Tzu
Lao-Tze's Tao Teh King illuminates The Tao: a guiding principle of the universe and all within it. By exploring the nature of dualities and …
The Apology of Socrates (version 3)
Read by Fr. Richard Zeile of Detroit
Plato
Plato's account of Socrates' defense at his trial for "corrupting the youth" is a classic summation of his teacher's life and miss…
Essays, First Series (version 2)
Read by Bob Neufeld
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays: First Series is a series of 12 essays written by Ralph Waldo Emerson concerning transcendentalism, including Self-Reliance. It was p…
Studies in Pessimism
Read by D.E. Wittkower
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer, an early 19th century philosopher, made significant contributions to metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. His work also…