Thomas Hobbes Quotes
-
There is more in Mersenne than in all the universities together.
-
To be seduced by Orators, as a Monarch by Flatterers.
-
I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.
-
It's not the pace of life I mind. It's the sudden stop at the end.
-
Science [is] knowledge of the truth of Propositions and how things are called.
-
Subjects have no greater liberty in a popular than in a monarchial state. That which deceives them is the equal participation of command.
-
As a draft-animal is yoked in a wagon, even so the spirit is yoked in this body.
-
The best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes.
-
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.
-
All men, among themselves, are by nature equal. The inequality we now discern hath its spring from the civil law.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Scientia potentia est, sed parva; quia scientia egregia rara est, nec proinde apparens nisi paucissimis, et in paucis rebus. Scientiae enim ea natura est, ut esse intelligi non possit, nisi ab illis qui sunt scientia praediti.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
From what cause the rite of baptism first proceeded is not expressed formally in the scripture, but it may be probably thought to be an imitation of the law of Moses concerning leprosy, wherein the leprous man was commanded to be kept out of the camp of Israel for a certain time, after which time being judged by the priest to be clean, he was admitted into the camp after a solemn washing. And this may therefore be a type of the washing in baptism, wherein such men as are cleansed of the leprosy of Sin by Faith, are received into the church with the solemnity of baptism.
-
From the same it proceedeth,that men gives different names, to one and the same thing, from the difference of their own passions: As they that approve a private opinion, call it Opinion; but they that mislike it, Haeresie: and yet haeresie signifies no more than private opinion; but has only agreater tincture of choler.
-
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.
-
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.
-
This is that law of the Gospel; whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them.
-
For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs... why may we not say, that all Automata (Engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life?