Thomas Hobbes Quotes

The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors.

Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.

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.

Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.

It is many times with a fraudulent Design that men stick their corrupt Doctrine with the Cloves of other mens Wit.

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.

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.

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.

Corporations are "worms in the body politic"

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.

Hell is Truth Seen Too Late.

If I had read as much as other men I would have known no more than they.

Where there is no common power, there is no law

The cause of Sense, is the External Body, or Object, which presseth the organ proper to each Sense, either immediately, as in theTaste and Touch; or mediately, as in Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling: which pressure, by the mediation of Nerves, and other strings, and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain, and Heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter- pressure, or endeavor of the heart, to deliver it self: which endeavor because Outward, seemeth to be some matter without.

The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.

Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter.

When it happeneth that a man signifieth unto us two contradictory opinions whereof the one is clearly and directly signified, andthe other either drawn from that by consequence, or not known to be contradictory to it; then (when he is not present to explicate himself better) we are to take the former of his opinions; for that is clearly signified to be his, and directly, whereas the other might proceed from error in the deduction, or ignorance of the repugnancy.

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.

There is more in Mersenne than in all the universities together.

A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.

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.

Competition of praise inclineth to a reverence of antiquity. For men contend with the living, not with the dead.

The first and fundamental law of Nature, which is, to seek peace and follow it.

Wisdom, properly so called, is nothing else but this: the perfect knowledge of the truth in all matters whatsoever.

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.

Silence is sometimes an argument of Consent.

Whatsoever accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they are not there, but are seemings and apparitions only. The things that really are in the world without us, are those motions by which these seemings are caused. And this is the great deception of sense, which also is by sense to be corrected. For as sense telleth me, when I see directly, that the colour seemeth to be in the object; so also sense telleth me, when I see by reflection, that colour is not in the object.

They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion.

In a Democracy, look how many Demagogs that is how many powerful Orators there are with the people.

Subjects have no greater liberty in a popular than in a monarchial state. That which deceives them is the equal participation of command.

If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.

It is manifest therefore that they who have sovereign power, are immediate rulers of the church under Christ, and all others but subordinate to them. If that were not, but kings should command one thing upon pain of death, and priests another upon pain of damnation, it would be impossible that peace and religion should stand together.

Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold.

By consequence, or train of thoughts, I understand that succession of one thought to another which is called, to distinguish it from discourse in words, mental discourse. When a man thinketh on anything whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently.

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.

It's my turn, to take a leap into the darkness!

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.

The first author of speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as He presented to his sight.

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.

He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy.

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.

All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.

For it is not the shape, but their use, that makes them angels.

The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method.

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.

Nature (the Art whereby God hath made and governs the World) is by the Art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an Artificial Animal. For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all Automata (Engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life?

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.

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.