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They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion. -- Thomas Hobbes
Emulation is grief arising from seeing one's self, exceeded or excelled by his concurrent, together with hope to equal or exceed him in time to come, by his own ability. But envy is the same grief joined with pleasure conceived in the imagination of some ill-fortune that may befall him. -- Thomas Hobbes
For naturall Bloud is in like manner made of the fruits of the Earth; and circulating, nourisheth by the way, every Member of the Body of Man. -- Thomas Hobbes
Geometry is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind. -- Thomas Hobbes
I mean by the universe, the aggregate of all things that have being in themselves; and so do all men else. And because God has a being, it follows that he is either the whole universe, or part of it. Nor does his Lordship go about to disprove it, but only seems to wonder at it. -- Thomas Hobbes
Whatsoever is the object of any man's Appetite or Desire; that is it which he for his part calleth Good: and the object of his Hate and Aversion, evil. -- Thomas Hobbes
Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech. -- Thomas Hobbes
But yet they that have no Science , are in better, and nobler condition with their naturall Prudence; than men, that by their mis-reasoning, or by trusting them that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd generall rules. -- Thomas Hobbes
There is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense. -- Thomas Hobbes
For all laws are general judgements, or sentences of the legislator; as also every particular judgement is a law to him whose case is judged. -- Thomas Hobbes
During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man. -- Thomas Hobbes
Every man may think his own cause just till it be heard and judged. -- Thomas Hobbes
Fact be virtuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth -- Thomas Hobbes
By how much one man has more experience of things past, than another, by so much also he is more prudent, and his expectations the seldomer fail him. -- Thomas Hobbes
Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past. -- Thomas Hobbes
Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad ... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social. -- Thomas Hobbes
It's my turn, to take a leap into the darkness! -- Thomas Hobbes
Immortality is a belief grounded upon other men's sayings, that they knew it supernaturally; or that they knew those who knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally. -- Thomas Hobbes
Love is a person's idea about his/her needs in other person what you are attracted to. -- Thomas Hobbes
It's not the pace of life I mind. It's the sudden stop at the end. -- Thomas Hobbes
Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome. -- Thomas Hobbes
Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man. -- Thomas Hobbes
The object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time; but to assure for ever, the way of his future desires. -- Thomas Hobbes
The characters of man's heart, blotted and confounded as they are with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts. -- Thomas Hobbes
No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it. -- Thomas Hobbes
For to accuse requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice. -- Thomas Hobbes
Opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion to what men fear, and talking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seeds of religion -- Thomas Hobbes
I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking. -- Thomas Hobbes
For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself -- Thomas Hobbes
Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly. -- Thomas Hobbes
In the very shadows of doubt a thread of reason (so to speak) begins, by whose guidance we shall escape to the clearest light. -- Thomas Hobbes
And where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruine -- Thomas Hobbes
Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold. -- Thomas Hobbes
Curiosity draws a man from consideration of the effect, to seek the cause. -- Thomas Hobbes
A man's conscience and his judgment are the same thing, and, as the judgment, so also the conscience may be erroneous -- Thomas Hobbes
To speak impartially, both sayings are very true: that man to man is a kind of God; and that man to man is an arrant wolf. The first is true, if we compare citizens amongst themselves; and the second, if we compare cities. -- Thomas Hobbes
Do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have done to thyself. -- Thomas Hobbes
Men measure not only other men, but all other things, by themselves. -- Thomas Hobbes
Of all Discourse , governed by desire of Knowledge, there is at last an End , either by attaining, or by giving over. -- Thomas Hobbes
Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing. -- Thomas Hobbes
Leisure is the mother of Philosophy -- Thomas Hobbes
The disembodied spirit is immortal; there is nothing of it that can grow old or die. But the embodied spirit sees death on the horizon as soon as its day dawns. -- Thomas Hobbes
Life is nasty, brutish, and short -- Thomas Hobbes
Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful. -- Thomas Hobbes
The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done. -- Thomas Hobbes
To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. -- Thomas Hobbes
A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life. -- Thomas Hobbes
This I know; God cannot sin, because his doing a thing makes it just, and consequently, no sin ... And therefore it is blasphemy to say, God can sin; but to say, that God can so order the world, as a sin may be necessarily caused thereby in a man, I do not see how it is any dishonor to him. -- Thomas Hobbes
Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice; with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter. -- Thomas Hobbes
Baptism is the sacrament of allegiance of them that are to be received into the Kingdom of God, that is to say, into Eternal life, that is to say, to Remission of Sin. For as Eternal life was lost by the committing, so it is recovered by the remitting of men's sins. -- Thomas Hobbes
There is more in Mersenne than in all the universities together. -- Thomas Hobbes
Let a man (as most men do) rate themselves as the highest Value they can; yet their true Value is no more than it is esteemed by others. -- Thomas Hobbes
Words are the money of fools. -- Thomas Hobbes
Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject. -- Thomas Hobbes
As soon as a thought darts, I write it down. -- Thomas Hobbes
Men looke not at the greatnesse of the evill past, but the greatnesse of the good to follow. -- Thomas Hobbes
Curiosity is the lust of the mind. -- Thomas Hobbes
The errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds; and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see but cannot avoid, without reckoning anew from the beginning. -- Thomas Hobbes
When the nature of the thing is incomprehensible, I can acquiesce in the Scripture: but when the signification of words is incomprehensible, I cannot acquiesce in the authority of a Schoolman. -- Thomas Hobbes
A free man is he that, in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to. -- Thomas Hobbes
Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different. -- Thomas Hobbes
Faith is a gift of God, which man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menace of torture. -- Thomas Hobbes
For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect. -- Thomas Hobbes
Hurt inflicted, if lesse than the benefit of transgressing, is not punishment... and is rather the Price, or Redemption, than the Punishment of a Crime. -- Thomas Hobbes
I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdity of my waking thoughts. -- Thomas Hobbes
Words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools. -- Thomas Hobbes
Corporations are "worms in the body politic" -- Thomas Hobbes
There are very few so foolish that they had not rather govern themselves than be governed by others. -- Thomas Hobbes
For such is the nature of man, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; Yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: For they see their own wit at hand, and other mens at a distance. -- Thomas Hobbes
Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another. -- Thomas Hobbes
I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. -- Thomas Hobbes
Time, and Industry, produce everyday new knowledge. -- Thomas Hobbes
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame. -- Thomas Hobbes
Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired. -- Thomas Hobbes
What reason is there that he which laboreth much, and, sparing the fruits of his labor, consumeth little, should be more charged than he that, living idly, getteth little and spendeth all he gets, seeing the one hath no more protection from the commonwealth than the other? -- Thomas Hobbes
For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it. -- Thomas Hobbes
And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause -- Thomas Hobbes
Power as is really divided, and as dangerously to all purposes, by sharing with another an Indirect Power, as a Direct one. -- Thomas Hobbes
No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact. -- Thomas Hobbes
No man is bound by the words themselves, either to kill himselfe, or any other man. -- Thomas Hobbes
As, in Sense, that which is really within us, is (as I have said before) only Motion, caused by the action of external objects, but in appearance; to the Sight, Light and Color; to the Ear, Sound; to the Nostril, Odor, &c. -- Thomas Hobbes
But all this language gotten, and augmented by Adam and his posterity, was again lost at the tower of Babel , when by the hand of God, every man was stricken for his rebellion, with an oblivion of his former language. -- Thomas Hobbes
If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away, and with it, Prognostiques from Dreams, false Prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted then they are for civill Obedience. -- Thomas Hobbes
I shall be glad then to find a hole to creep out of the world. -- Thomas Hobbes
A Law of Nature, (Lex Naturalis) is a Precept, or general Rule, found out by Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same; and to omit, that, by which he thinketh it may be best preserved. -- Thomas Hobbes
To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad. -- Thomas Hobbes
To say God spake or appeared as he is in his own nature, is to deny his Infiniteness, Invisibility, Incomprehensibility. -- Thomas Hobbes
A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press. -- Thomas Hobbes
The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good. -- Thomas Hobbes
Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man. -- Thomas Hobbes
Science [is] knowledge of the truth of Propositions and how things are called. -- Thomas Hobbes
All men, among themselves, are by nature equal. The inequality we now discern hath its spring from the civil law. -- Thomas Hobbes
True and false are attributes of speech not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error theremay be, as when we expect that which shall not be; or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth. -- Thomas Hobbes
Subjects have no greater liberty in a popular than in a monarchial state. That which deceives them is the equal participation of command. -- Thomas Hobbes
Competition of praise inclineth to a reverence of antiquity. For men contend with the living, not with the dead. -- Thomas Hobbes
The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method. -- Thomas Hobbes
So easy are men to be drawn to believe any thing, from such men as have gotten credit with them; and can with gentleness and dexterity take hold of their fear and ignorance. -- Thomas Hobbes
Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. -- Thomas Hobbes
War consisteth not in battle only,or the act of fighting;but in a tract of time,wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known -- Thomas Hobbes
The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. -- Thomas Hobbes
Setting themselves against reason, as often as reason is against them. -- Thomas Hobbes
So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime. -- Thomas Hobbes
A great leap in the dark -- Thomas Hobbes
And Beasts that have Deliberation , must necessarily also have Will . -- Thomas Hobbes
The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions. Defect in the understanding is ignorance; in reasoning, erroneous opinion. -- Thomas Hobbes
Because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts, I am well satisfied that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake. -- Thomas Hobbes
Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness. -- Thomas Hobbes
Heresy is a word which, when it is used without passion, signifies a private opinion. So the different sects of the old philosophers, Academians, Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, &c., were called heresies. -- Thomas Hobbes
The Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation. -- Thomas Hobbes
And from this followeth another law: that such things as cannot
be divided be enjoyed in common, if it can be; and if the quantity
of the thing permit, without stint; otherwise proportionably to the
number of them that have right. -- Thomas Hobbes
And as in other things, so in men, not the seller, but the buyer determines the Price. -- Thomas Hobbes
Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves. -- Thomas Hobbes
The oath adds nothing to the obligation. For a covenant, if lawful, binds in the sight of God, without the oath, as much as with it; if unlawful, bindeth not at all, though it be confirmed with an oath. -- Thomas Hobbes
Humans are driven by a perpetual and restless desire of power. -- Thomas Hobbes
And if a man consider the original of this great Ecclesiastical Dominion, he will easily perceive, that the Papacy , is no other than the Ghost of the deceased Romane Empire , sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: For so did the Papacy start up on a Sudden out of the Ruines of that Heathen Power. -- Thomas Hobbes
To say that God is an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect there is no God at all. What alleges he against it, but the School-divinity which I have already answered? Scripture he can bring none, because the word incorporeal is not found in Scripture. -- Thomas Hobbes
Liberty, to define it, is nothing other than the absence of impediments to motion -- Thomas Hobbes
Covenants without swords are but words. -- Thomas Hobbes
A Covenant not to defend my selfe from force, by force, is always voyd. -- Thomas Hobbes
A Covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always void. For ... no man can transfer or lay down his Right to save himself from Death. -- Thomas Hobbes
In the state of nature profit is the measure of right. -- Thomas Hobbes
The law is the public conscience. -- Thomas Hobbes
Now I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark -- Thomas Hobbes
It is many times with a fraudulent Design that men stick their corrupt Doctrine with the Cloves of other mens Wit. -- Thomas Hobbes
It is not easy to fall into any absurdity, unless it be by the length of an account; wherein he may perhaps forget what went before. For all men by nature reason alike, and well, when they have good principles. -- Thomas Hobbes
The Scripture was written to shew unto men the kingdom of God; and to prepare their minds to become his obedient subjects; leavingthe world, and the Philosophy thereof, to the disputation of men, for the exercising of their natural Reason. -- Thomas Hobbes
To be seduced by Orators, as a Monarch by Flatterers. -- Thomas Hobbes
When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death. -- Thomas Hobbes
The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them. -- Thomas Hobbes
The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living. -- Thomas Hobbes
He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy. -- Thomas Hobbes
Where there is no common power, there is no law -- Thomas Hobbes
As if it were Injustice to sell dearer than we buy; or to give more to a man than he merits. The value of all things contracted for, is measured by the Appetite of the Contractors: and therefore the just value, is that which they be contented to give. -- Thomas Hobbes
For after the subject is removed or the eye shut, we still retain an image of the things seen, though more obscure than when we see it ... Imagination, therefore, is nothing more than decaying sense. -- Thomas Hobbes
He that has most experience [is] so much more prudent than he that is new, as not to be equalled by any advantage of natural and extemporary wit- though many young men think the contrary. -- Thomas Hobbes
Nor can a man any more live, whose Desires are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand. -- Thomas Hobbes
Desire of praise disposeth to laudable actions. -- Thomas Hobbes
And therefore in geometry (which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind), men begin at settling the significations of their words; which settling of significations, they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning. -- Thomas Hobbes
If nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun. -- Thomas Hobbes
Leisure can be one of the Mothers of Philosophy. -- Thomas Hobbes
Man is distinguished not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion, from all other animals. -- Thomas Hobbes
Wisdom, properly so called, is nothing else but this: the perfect knowledge of the truth in all matters whatsoever. -- Thomas Hobbes
The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors. -- Thomas Hobbes
The skill of making, and maintaining Common-wealths, consisteth in certain Rules, as doth Arithmetique and Geometry; not (as Tennis-play) on Practise onely: which Rules, neither poor men have the leisure, nor men that have had the leisure, have hitherto had the curiosity, or the method to find out. -- Thomas Hobbes
Hell is truth seen too late. -- Thomas Hobbes
The Interpretation of the Laws of Nature in a Common-wealth, dependeth not on the books of Moral Philosophy. The Authority of writers, without the Authority of the Commonwealth, maketh not their opinions Law, be they never so true. -- Thomas Hobbes
Those men that are so remissly governed that they dare take up arms to defend or introduce an opinion, are still in war, and their condition not peace, but only a cessation of arms for fear of one another, and they live as it were in the precincts of battle continually. -- Thomas Hobbes
All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. -- Thomas Hobbes
The best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes. -- Thomas Hobbes
I know not how the world will receive it, nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favor it. For in a way beset with those that contend, on one side for too great Liberty , and on the other side for too much Authority , 'tis hard to passe between the points of both unwounded. -- Thomas Hobbes
It is in the laws of a commonwealth, as in the laws of gaming: Whatsoever the gamesters all agree on, is injustice to none of them. -- Thomas Hobbes
Because silver and gold have their value from the matter itself, they have first this privilege, that the value of them cannot be altered by the power of one, nor of a few commonwealths, as being a common measure of the commodities of all places. But base money may easily be enhanced or abased. -- Thomas Hobbes
From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced. -- Thomas Hobbes
What is the heart but a spring, and the nerves but so many strings, and the joints but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body? -- Thomas Hobbes
That Wisedome is acquired, not by reading of Books, but of Men. Consequently whereunto, those persons, that for the most part can give no other proof of being wise, take great delight to shew what they think they have read in men, by uncharitable censures of one another behind their backs. -- Thomas Hobbes
This is that law of the Gospel; whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them. -- Thomas Hobbes
The passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason. -- Thomas Hobbes
The original of all great and lasting societies consisted not in the mutual good will men had toward each other, but in the mutual fear they had of each other. -- Thomas Hobbes
Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair. -- Thomas Hobbes
Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence, but who shall Judge? -- Thomas Hobbes
If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies. -- Thomas Hobbes
And this Feare of things invisible, is the naturall Seed of that, which every one in himself calleth Religion; and in them that worship, or feare that Power otherwise than they do, Superstition. -- Thomas Hobbes
The science which teacheth arts and handicrafts is merely science for the gaining of a living; but the science which teacheth deliverance from worldly existence, is not that the true science? -- Thomas Hobbes
I had requested all who might find aught meriting censure in my writings, to do me the favor of pointing it out to me, I may state that no objections worthy of remark have been alleged against what I then said on these questions except two, to which I will here briefly reply. -- Thomas Hobbes
Prudence is but experience, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto. -- Thomas Hobbes
Nature itself cannot err -- Thomas Hobbes
A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him. -- Thomas Hobbes
The "value" or "worth" of a man is, as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power. -- Thomas Hobbes
Ambition, and Covetousnesse are Passions that are perpetually incumbent, and pressing. -- Thomas Hobbes
That wee have of Geometry, which is the mother of all Naturall Science, wee are not indebted for it to the Schools. -- Thomas Hobbes
A naturall foole that could never learn by heart the order of numerall words, as one , two , and three , may observe every stroak of the Clock, and nod to it, or say one, one, one; but can never know what houre it strikes. -- Thomas Hobbes
The right of nature ... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life. -- Thomas Hobbes
If I had read as much as other men I would have known no more than they. -- Thomas Hobbes
The first author of speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as He presented to his sight ... -- Thomas Hobbes
Understanding is by the flame of the passions never enlightened, but dazzled. -- Thomas Hobbes
As a draft-animal is yoked in a wagon, even so the spirit is yoked in this body -- Thomas Hobbes
If men are naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors? -- Thomas Hobbes
How could a state be governed, or protected in its foreign relations if every individual remained free to obey or not to obey the law according to his private opinion. -- Thomas Hobbes
In a Democracy, look how many Demagogs that is how many powerful Orators there are with the people. -- Thomas Hobbes
When a man tells me God hath spoken in a dream, I know he dreamt that God spoke to him. -- Thomas Hobbes
The condition of man ... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone -- Thomas Hobbes
Silence is sometimes an argument of Consent -- Thomas Hobbes
Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter. -- Thomas Hobbes
Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, [is] religion; not allowed, superstition. -- Thomas Hobbes
There be as many persons of a king, as there be petty constables in his kingdom. And so there are, or else he cannot be obeyed. But I never said that a king, and every one of his persons, are the same substance. -- Thomas Hobbes
That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself. -- Thomas Hobbes
Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter. -- Thomas Hobbes
Give an inch, he'll take an ell. -- Thomas Hobbes
For it is not the shape, but their use, that makes them angels. -- Thomas Hobbes
The Imagination that is raised in man (or any other creature imbued with the faculty of imagining) by words, or other voluntary signs, is that we generally call Understanding; and is common to Man and Beasts. -- Thomas Hobbes
The reputation of power IS power. -- Thomas Hobbes
He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himselfe, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind; -- Thomas Hobbes
The first and fundamental law of Nature, which is, to seek peace and follow it. -- Thomas Hobbes
For all uniting of strength by private men, is, if for evil intent, unjust; if for intent unknown, dangerous to the Publique, and unjustly concealed. -- Thomas Hobbes
The light of humane minds is perspicuous words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity, reason is the pace ... And, on the contrary, metaphors, and senseless ambiguous words are like ignes fatui; and reasoning upon them is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities. -- Thomas Hobbes
Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which every one in himself calleth religion. -- Thomas Hobbes
Scientia potentia est.
Knowledge is power. -- Thomas Hobbes
The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History . -- Thomas Hobbes
Respice finem; that is to say, in all your actions, look often upon what you would have, as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way to attain it. -- Thomas Hobbes
The flesh endures the storms of the present alone; the mind, those of the past and future as well as the present. Gluttony is a lust of the mind. -- Thomas Hobbes
When two, or more men, know of one and the same fact, they are said to be CONSCIOUS of it one to another; which is as much as to know it together. -- Thomas Hobbes
Covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all. -- Thomas Hobbes
To conclude, The Light of humane minds is Perspicuous Words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity; Reason is the pace; Encrease of Science, the way; and the Benefit of man-kind, the end. -- Thomas Hobbes
It is one thing to desire, another to be in capacity fit for what we desire. -- Thomas Hobbes
The Present only has a being in Nature; things Past have a being in the Memory only, but things to come have no being at all; the Future but a fiction of the mind. -- Thomas Hobbes
It is fairer to tax people on what they extract from the economy, as roughly measured by their consumption, than to tax them on what they produce for the economy, as roughly measured by their income. -- Thomas Hobbes
Look not at
the greatness of the evil past, but the greatness of the good to follow. -- Thomas Hobbes
Reason is the Soul of the Law. -- Thomas Hobbes
Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money. -- Thomas Hobbes
It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law. -- Thomas Hobbes
For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized. -- Thomas Hobbes
The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only. -- Thomas Hobbes
No man can be judge to his own cause. -- Thomas Hobbes