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A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.
Thomas Hobbes -
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.
Thomas Hobbes
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Men looke not at the greatnesse of the evill past, but the greatnesse of the good to follow.
Thomas Hobbes -
It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.
Thomas Hobbes -
Faith is a gift of God, which man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menace of torture.
Thomas Hobbes -
Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject.
Thomas Hobbes -
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.
Thomas Hobbes -
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.
Thomas Hobbes
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Do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have done to thyself.
Thomas Hobbes -
Science is the knowledge of Consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another: by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we will, or the like, another time.
Thomas Hobbes -
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.
Thomas Hobbes -
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.
Thomas Hobbes -
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.
Thomas Hobbes -
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.
Thomas Hobbes
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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.
Thomas Hobbes -
The first author of speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as He presented to his sight.
Thomas Hobbes -
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.
Thomas Hobbes -
Wisdom, properly so called, is nothing else but this: the perfect knowledge of the truth in all matters whatsoever.
Thomas Hobbes -
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.
Thomas Hobbes -
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.
Thomas Hobbes
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Time, and Industry, produce everyday new knowledge.
Thomas Hobbes -
The "value" or "worth" of a man is, as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power.
Thomas Hobbes -
And because the condition of Man, (as hath been declared in the precedent Chapter) is a condition of Warre of every one against everyone; in which case every one is governed by his own Reason; and there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemyes; It followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a Right to every thing; even to one anothers body.
Thomas Hobbes -
I know not how the world will receive it, nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favor it. For in a way beset with those that contend, on one side for too great Liberty , and on the other side for too much Authority , 'tis hard to passe between the points of both unwounded.
Thomas Hobbes