Thomas Hobbes Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Thomas Hobbes on Wise Famous Quotes.
Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, [is] religion; not allowed, superstition.
From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced.
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.
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.
It is many times with a fraudulent Design that men stick their corrupt Doctrine with the Cloves of other mens Wit.
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.
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
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.
Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man.
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.
The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.
Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.
Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject.
He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy.
All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.
A man's conscience and his judgment are the same thing, and, as the judgment, so also the conscience may be erroneous
Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad ... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.
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.
In the very shadows of doubt a thread of reason (so to speak) begins, by whose guidance we shall escape to the clearest light.
He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himselfe, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind;
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.
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?
Of all Discourse , governed by desire of Knowledge, there is at last an End , either by attaining, or by giving over.
The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors.
That wee have of Geometry, which is the mother of all Naturall Science, wee are not indebted for it to the Schools.
Competition of praise inclineth to a reverence of antiquity. For men contend with the living, not with the dead.
All men, among themselves, are by nature equal. The inequality we now discern hath its spring from the civil law.
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.
A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him.
Prudence is but experience, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.
This is that law of the Gospel; whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them.
I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.
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
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.
The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.
Power as is really divided, and as dangerously to all purposes, by sharing with another an Indirect Power, as a Direct one.
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?
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.