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.
-
For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it.
-
The first and fundamental law of Nature, which is, to seek peace and follow it.
-
Understanding is by the flame of the passions never enlightened, but dazzled.
-
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.
-
A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.
-
No arts, no letters - no society.
-
I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.
-
For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect.
-
Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy.
-
The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.
-
It is many times with a fraudulent Design that men stick their corrupt Doctrine with the Cloves of other mens Wit.
-
And whereas many men, by accident unevitable, become unable to maintain themselves by their labour; they ought not to be left to the Charity of private persons; but to be provided for, (as far-forth as the necessities of Nature require,) by the Lawes of the Common-wealth. For as it is Unchariablenesse in any man, to neglect the impotent; so it is in the Soveraign of a Common-wealth, to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain Charity.
-
Men looke not at the greatnesse of the evill past, but the greatnesse of the good to follow.
-
Desire , to know why, and how, CURIOSITY; such as is in no living creature but Man ; so that Man is distinguished, not only by his Reason; but also by this singular Passion from other Animals ; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures of Sense, by predominance, take away the care of knowing causes; which is a Lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of Knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal Pleasure.
-
Geometry is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind.
-
Faith is a gift of God, which man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menace of torture.
-
Man is distinguished not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion, from all other animals.
-
The errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds; and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see but cannot avoid, without reckoning anew from the beginning.
-
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.
-
We are not to renounce our senses and experience, nor (that which is the undoubted Word of God) our natural Reason. For they are the talents which he hath put into our hands to negotiate, till the coming again of our blessed savior, and therefore not to be folded up in the napkin of an implicate faith, but employed in the purchase of justice, peace, and true religion. For though there be many things in God's Word above Reason--that is to say, which cannot by natural reason be either demonstrated or confuted--yet there is nothing contrary to it.
-
So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.
-
The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method.
-
That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself.