Ad oculos, ad perpetuam memoriam, ad meliora, ad mortem, ad lucem.
On the common etymology of library & liberty
library (n.)
place for books, late 14c., from Anglo-Frenchlibrarie, Old Frenchlibrairie, librarie “collection of books; bookseller’s shop” (14c.), from Latin librarium “book-case, chest for books,” and libraria “a bookseller’s shop,” in Medieval Latin “a library,” noun uses of the neuter and fem., respectively, of librarius “concerning books,” from Latin librarium “chest for books,” from liber (genitive libri) “book, paper, parchment.”
liberty (n.)
late 14c., “free choice, freedom to do as one chooses,” also “freedom from the bondage of sin,” from Old Frenchliberte “freedom, liberty, free will” (14c., Modern Frenchliberté), from Latin libertatem (nominative libertas) “civil or political freedom, condition of a free man; absence of restraint; permission,” from liber “free” (see liberal (adj.)). At first of persons; of communities, “state of being free from arbitrary, despotic, or autocratic rule or control” is from late 15c.
The French notion of liberty is political equality; the English notion is personal independence. [William R. Greg, “France in January 1852” in “Miscellaneous Essays”]
“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”
