Thomas Hobbes Quotes
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When two, or more men, know of one and the same fact, they are said to be CONSCIOUS of it one to another; which is as much as to know it together.
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For it is not the bare Words, but the Scope of the writer that giveth true light, by which any writing is to bee interpreted; and they that insist upon single Texts, without considering the main Designe, can derive no thing from them clearly; but rather by casting atomes of Scripture, as dust before mens eyes, make everything more obscure than it is; an ordinary artifice of those who seek not the truth, but their own advantage.
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Immortality is a belief grounded upon other men's sayings, that they knew it supernaturally; or that they knew those who knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally.
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The Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation.
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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.
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Baptism is the sacrament of allegiance of them that are to be received into the Kingdom of God, that is to say, into Eternal life, that is to say, to Remission of Sin. For as Eternal life was lost by the committing, so it is recovered by the remitting of men's sins.
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It is manifest therefore that they who have sovereign power, are immediate rulers of the church under Christ, and all others but subordinate to them. If that were not, but kings should command one thing upon pain of death, and priests another upon pain of damnation, it would be impossible that peace and religion should stand together.
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There is no action of man in this life that is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences as no human providence is high enough to give a man a prospect in the end. And in this chain, there are linked together both pleasing and unpleasing events in such manner as he that will do anything for his pleasure must engage himself to suffer all the pains annexed to it.
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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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Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past.
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Covenants without swords are but words.
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If nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun.
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And this Feare of things invisible, is the naturall Seed of that, which every one in himself calleth Religion; and in them that worship, or feare that Power otherwise than they do, Superstition.
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The oath adds nothing to the obligation. For a covenant, if lawful, binds in the sight of God, without the oath, as much as with it; if unlawful, bindeth not at all, though it be confirmed with an oath.
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Love is a person's idea about his/her needs in other person what you are attracted to.
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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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During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.
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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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For after the subject is removed or the eye shut, we still retain an image of the things seen, though more obscure than when we see it...Imagination, therefore, is nothing more than decaying sense.
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For all laws are general judgements, or sentences of the legislator; as also every particular judgement is a law to him whose case is judged.
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Nature (the Art whereby God hath made and governs the World) is by the Art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an Artificial Animal. For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; 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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Prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto.
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Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence, but who shall Judge?
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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?