Thomas Hobbes Quotes
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Men looke not at the greatnesse of the evill past, but the greatnesse of the good to follow.
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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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The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History.
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The world is governed by opinion.
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For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized.
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Where there is no common power, there is no law.
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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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Curiosity is the lust of the mind.
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Man is distinguished not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion, from all other animals.
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Hell is Truth Seen Too Late.
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War consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.
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Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair.
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I shall be glad then to find a hole to creep out of the world.
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Of all Discourse , governed by desire of Knowledge, there is at last an End , either by attaining, or by giving over.
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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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The most noble and profitable invention of all other, was that of SPEECH, consisting of Names or Appellations, and their Connexion; whereby men register their Thoughts; recall them when they are past; and also declare them one to another for mutuall utility and conversation; without which, there had been amongst men, neither Commonwealth, nor Society, nor Contract, nor Peace, no more than amongst Lyons, Bears, and Wolves.
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No man is bound by the words themselves, either to kill himselfe, or any other man.
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Faith is a gift of God, which man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menace of torture.
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The Scripture was written to shew unto men the kingdom of God; and to prepare their minds to become his obedient subjects; leavingthe world, and the Philosophy thereof, to the disputation of men, for the exercising of their natural Reason.
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By this we may understand, there be two sorts of knowledge, whereof the one is nothing else but sense, or knowledge original (as I have said at the beginning of the second chapter), and remembrance of the same; the other is called science or knowledge of the truth of propositions, and how things are called, and is derived from understanding.
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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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A naturall foole that could never learn by heart the order of numerall words, as one , two , and three , may observe every stroak of the Clock, and nod to it, or say one, one, one; but can never know what houre it strikes.
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A Covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always void. For... no man can transfer or lay down his Right to save himself from Death.
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Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful.