Thomas Hobbes Quotes
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The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.
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But if one Subject giveth Counsell to another, to do anything contrary to the Lawes, whether that Counsell proceed from evil intention, or from ignorance onely, it is punishable by the Common-wealth; because igorance of the Law, is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the Lawes to which he is subject.
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Every man may think his own cause just till it be heard and judged.
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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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... it is one thing to desire, another to be in capacity fit for what we desire.
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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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No mans error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.
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Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past.
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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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The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them.
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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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Love is a person's idea about his/her needs in other person what you are attracted to.
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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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Curiosity draws a man from consideration of the effect, to seek the cause.
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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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Leisure can be one of the Mothers of Philosophy.
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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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Prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto.
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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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True and false are attributes of speech not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error theremay be, as when we expect that which shall not be; or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth.
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Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.
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Hell is Truth Seen Too Late.
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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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Opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion to what men fear, and talking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seeds of religion.