Thomas Hobbes Quotes
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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.
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Understanding is by the flame of the passions never enlightened, but dazzled.
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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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The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method.
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And in these four things, opinion of ghosts , ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear , and taking of things casual for prognostics , consisteth the natural seed of religion ; which by reason of the different fancies, judgments and passions of several men, has grown up into ceremonies so different, that those which are used by one man, are for the most part ridiculous to another.
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The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History.
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The first and fundamental law of Nature, which is, to seek peace and follow it.
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The world is governed by opinion.
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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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I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.
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The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.
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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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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.
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It is many times with a fraudulent Design that men stick their corrupt Doctrine with the Cloves of other mens Wit.
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For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it.
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Time, and Industry, produce everyday new knowledge.
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No arts, no letters - no society.
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Geometry is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind.
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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.
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Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject.
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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.
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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 is the Mother of Philosophy.
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It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.