Thomas Hobbes Quotes
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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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No mans error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.
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For if I should not believe all that is written by Historians, of the glorious acts of Alexander, or Caesar; I do not think the Ghost of Alexander, or Caesar, had any just cause to be offended; or any body else, but the Historian. If Livy say the Gods made once a Cow speak, and we believe it not; we distrust not God therein, but Livy. So that it is evident, that whatsoever we believe, upon no other reason, then what is drawn from authority of men only, and their writings; whether they be sent from God or not, is Faith in men only.
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For WAR, consisteth not in Battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to content by Battle is sufficiently known.... So the nature of War, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE.
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Leisure can be one of the Mothers of Philosophy.
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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?
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... it is one thing to desire, another to be in capacity fit for what we desire.
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And therefore in geometry (which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind), men begin at settling the significations of their words; which settling of significations, they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning.
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Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful.
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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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Leisure is the mother of philosophy; and commonwealth, the mother of peace and leisure.
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Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice; with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter.
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Power as is really divided, and as dangerously to all purposes, by sharing with another an Indirect Power, as a Direct one.
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For to accuse requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice.
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No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact.
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Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
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Every man may think his own cause just till it be heard and judged.
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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.
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Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.
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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.
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Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter.
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As in the presence of the Master, the Servants are equall, and without any honour at all; So are the Subjects, in the presence of the Soveraign. And though they shine some more, some lesse, when they are out of his sight; yet in his presence, they shine no more than the Starres in presence of the Sun.
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I shall be glad then to find a hole to creep out of the world.
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No man is bound by the words themselves, either to kill himselfe, or any other man.