Thomas Hobbes Quotes
-
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.
-
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.
-
I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.
-
This is that law of the Gospel; whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them.
-
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.
-
Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking.
-
No man can be judge to his own cause.
-
Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind, as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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 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.
-
Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools.
-
A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life.
-
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?
-
Men are not therefore put to death, or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious and contrary to men's preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest, inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and none else, frameth and maketh men's wills such as men would have them.
-
Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.