Thomas Hobbes Quotes
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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.
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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.
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Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking.
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If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.
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From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced.
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No man can be judge to his own cause.
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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.
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Leisure is the mother of philosophy; and commonwealth, the mother of peace and leisure.
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And for Incoherent Speech, it was amongst the Gentiles taken for one sort of Prophecy, because the Prophets of their Oracles, intoxicated with a spirit, or vapor from the cave of the Pythian Oracle at Delphi, were for a time really mad, and spake like mad-men; of whoose loose words a sense might be made to fit any event, in such sort, as all bodies are said to be made of Materia prima.
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Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.
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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.
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Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools.
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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.
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And Beasts that have Deliberation , must necessarily also have Will.
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Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
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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.
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And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon generall, and infallible rules, called Science; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born within us; nor attained, (as Prudence,) while we look after somewhat else.
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A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life.
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All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.