Thomas Hobbes Quotes
-
The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.
-
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.
-
No man is bound by the words themselves, either to kill himselfe, or any other man.
-
If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.
-
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.
-
Curiosity draws a man from consideration of the effect, to seek the cause.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Good and Evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different: And diverse men differ not only in their judgment, on the senses of what is pleasant and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, but also of what is conformable, or disagreeable to Reason, in the actions of the common life. Nay, the same man, in diverse times, differs from himself, and one time praiseth, that is, calleth Good, what another time he dispraiseth, and calleth Evil.
-
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.
-
Fact be vertuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth.
-
And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.
-
There is no such thing as perpetual tranquility of mind while we live here.
-
Let a man (as most men do) rate themselves as the highest Value they can; yet their true Value is no more than it is esteemed by others.
-
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.
-
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.
-
And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause.
-
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.
-
For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself.
-
A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.
-
Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.
-
He that has most experience [is] so much more prudent than he that is new, as not to be equalled by any advantage of natural and extemporary wit- though many young men think the contrary.
-
As, in Sense, that which is really within us, is (as I have said before) only Motion, caused by the action of external objects, but in appearance; to the Sight, Light and Color; to the Ear, Sound; to the Nostril, Odor, &c.
-
Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair.