Thomas Hobbes Quotes
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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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This is that law of the Gospel; whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them.
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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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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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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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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.
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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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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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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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The value of all things contracted for, is measured by the appetite of the contractors, and therefore the just value is that which they be contented to give.
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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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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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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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No man can be judge to his own cause.
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I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking.
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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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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.
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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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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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Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.
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Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
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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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Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold.
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This I know; God cannot sin, because his doing a thing makes it just, and consequently, no sin.... And therefore it is blasphemy to say, God can sin; but to say, that God can so order the world, as a sin may be necessarily caused thereby in a man, I do not see how it is any dishonor to him.