Thomas Hobbes Quotes
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Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.
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The science which teacheth arts and handicrafts is merely science for the gaining of a living; but the science which teacheth deliverance from worldly existence, is not that the true science?
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To say God spake or appeared as he is in his own nature, is to deny his Infiniteness, Invisibility, Incomprehensibility.
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Do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have done to thyself.
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Ambition, and Covetousnesse are Passions that are perpetually incumbent, and pressing.
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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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It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.
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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. For the right men have by Nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no Covenant be relinquished. ... [The right] to defend ourselves [is the] summe of the Right of Nature.
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Hell is Truth Seen Too Late.
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Time, and Industry, produce everyday new knowledge.
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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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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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Men measure not only other men, but all other things, by themselves.
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The world is governed by opinion.
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The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.
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The disembodied spirit is immortal; there is nothing of it that can grow old or die. But the embodied spirit sees death on the horizon as soon as its day dawns.
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The characters of man's heart, blotted and confounded as they are with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts.
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Because silver and gold have their value from the matter itself, they have first this privilege, that the value of them cannot be altered by the power of one, nor of a few commonwealths, as being a common measure of the commodities of all places. But base money may easily be enhanced or abased.
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If we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent to the observation of justice, and other laws of Nature, without a common Power to keep them all in awe; we might as well suppose all mankind to do the same; and then there neither would be nor need to be any civil government or commonwealth at all, because there would be Peace without subjection.
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The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions. Defect in the understanding is ignorance; in reasoning, erroneous opinion.
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Wisdom, properly so called, is nothing else but this: the perfect knowledge of the truth in all matters whatsoever.
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The right of nature... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life.
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A private man has always the liberty (because thought is free) to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefits can accrue by men's belief, to those that pretend, or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies.
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The cause of Sense, is the External Body, or Object, which presseth the organ proper to each Sense, either immediately, as in theTaste and Touch; or mediately, as in Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling: which pressure, by the mediation of Nerves, and other strings, and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain, and Heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter- pressure, or endeavor of the heart, to deliver it self: which endeavor because Outward, seemeth to be some matter without.