Thomas Hobbes Quotes.
Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad… but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.
Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.
Curiosity is the lust of the mind.
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.
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.
Such truth, as opposeth no man’s profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.
I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking.
No arts, no letters – no society.
The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only.
Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter.
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.
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.
It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.
Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful.
Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing.
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.
The passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason.
It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law
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.
Prudence is but experience, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.
Words are the money of fools.
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.
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.
Covenants without swords are but words.
Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy.
Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
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.
The condition of man… is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.
Hell is Truth Seen Too Late.
Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject.
Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
The best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes.
In the state of nature profit is the measure of right.
Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.
A man’s conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.
Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.
Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.
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.
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.
