Thomas Hobbes Quotes

#1. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#2. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#3. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#4. Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence, but who shall Judge? - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#5. Leisure can be one of the Mothers of Philosophy. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#6. Humans are driven by a perpetual and restless desire of power. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#7. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#8. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#9. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#10. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#11. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#12. For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#13. The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#14. If nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#15. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#16. Covenants without swords are but words. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#17. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#18. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#19. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#20. The law is the public conscience. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#21. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#22. It's my turn, to take a leap into the darkness! - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#23. Liberty, to define it, is nothing other than the absence of impediments to motion - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#24. Where there is no common power, there is no law - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#25. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#26. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#27. Scientia potentia est.

Knowledge is power. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#28. Understanding is by the flame of the passions never enlightened, but dazzled. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#29. The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#30. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#31. Setting themselves against reason, as often as reason is against them. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#32. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#33. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#34. Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#35. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#36. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#37. He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himselfe, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind; - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#38. I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#39. No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#40. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#41. 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? - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#42. There are very few so foolish that they had not rather govern themselves than be governed by others. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#43. For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#44. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#45. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#46. The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History . - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#47. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#48. Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#49. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#50. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#51. I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#52. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#53. A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#54. Every man may think his own cause just till it be heard and judged. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#55. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#56. Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice; with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#57. The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#58. Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#59. As soon as a thought darts, I write it down. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#60. Men looke not at the greatnesse of the evill past, but the greatnesse of the good to follow. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#61. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#62. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#63. Do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have done to thyself. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#64. When a man tells me God hath spoken in a dream, I know he dreamt that God spoke to him. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#65. In the very shadows of doubt a thread of reason (so to speak) begins, by whose guidance we shall escape to the clearest light. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#66. And where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruine - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#67. Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#68. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#69. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#70. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#71. Men measure not only other men, but all other things, by themselves. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#72. Of all Discourse , governed by desire of Knowledge, there is at last an End , either by attaining, or by giving over. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#73. Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#74. Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#75. Life is nasty, brutish, and short - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#76. This is that law of the Gospel; whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#77. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#78. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#79. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#80. To say God spake or appeared as he is in his own nature, is to deny his Infiniteness, Invisibility, Incomprehensibility. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#81. Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#82. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#83. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#84. 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? - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#85. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#86. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#87. Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#88. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#89. There is more in Mersenne than in all the universities together. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#90. Give an inch, he'll take an ell. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#91. Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, [is] religion; not allowed, superstition. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#92. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#93. Science [is] knowledge of the truth of Propositions and how things are called. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#94. Love is a person's idea about his/her needs in other person what you are attracted to. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#95. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#96. I shall be glad then to find a hole to creep out of the world. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#97. 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? - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#98. In a Democracy, look how many Demagogs that is how many powerful Orators there are with the people. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#99. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes

#100. 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. - Author: Thomas Hobbes