Thomas Hobbes Quotes
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[Necessity is] the sum of all things, which being now existent, conduce and concur to the production of that action hereafter, whereof if any one thing now were wanting, the effect could not be produced. This concourse of causes, whereof every one is determined to be such as it is by a like concourse of former causes, may well be called (in respect they were all set and ordered by the eternal causes of all things, God Almighty) the decree of God.
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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 whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced.
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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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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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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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I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking.
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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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Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man.
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No man can be judge to his own cause.
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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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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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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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Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools.
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And Beasts that have Deliberation , must necessarily also have Will.
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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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A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life.
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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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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.
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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.
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Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves.
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Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold.
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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.