Thomas Hobbes Quotes
-
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?
-
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.
-
Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold.
-
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.
-
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.
-
A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life.
-
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.
-
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.
-
True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.
-
Power as is really divided, and as dangerously to all purposes, by sharing with another an Indirect Power, as a Direct one.
-
If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.
-
Covenants without swords are but words.
-
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.
-
Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence, but who shall Judge?
-
In sum, all actions and habits are to be esteemed good or evil by their causes and usefulness in reference to the commonwealth, and not by their mediocrity, nor by their being commended. For several men praise several customs, and, contrarily, what one calls vice, another calls virtue, as their present affections lead them.
-
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.
-
No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact.
-
The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.
-
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.
-
Every man may think his own cause just till it be heard and judged.
-
... it is one thing to desire, another to be in capacity fit for what we desire.
-
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.
-
And if a man consider the original of this great Ecclesiastical Dominion, he will easily perceive, that the Papacy , is no other than the Ghost of the deceased Romane Empire , sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: For so did the Papacy start up on a Sudden out of the Ruines of that Heathen Power.
-
And Beasts that have Deliberation , must necessarily also have Will.