Thomas Hobbes Quotes
"The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Thoughts, Blame, Grave, Light, Man, Shame)
"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."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Men, Peace, Defense, Liberty, Man, Right)
"A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Life, Force, Man, Right)
"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
(Related: Death, Day, Nothing, Old, Spirit)
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called "Facts". They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Horror)
"The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Power, Obligation)
"The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Grave)
"The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Competition, Envy, Living, Praise)
"Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Glory, Laughter, Passion)
"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
(Related: Life, Nature, Power, Liberty, Man, Right, Will)
"The condition of man... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: War, Man)
"There is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Life, Fear, Desire, Mind, Sense)
"They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Heresy, Opinion)
"Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Nothing, Speech, Understanding)
"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."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: War, Time, Act, Battle, Fighting, Will)
"Words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Money, Men, Fools, Words)
"Words are the money of fools."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Money, Fools, Words)
"Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon with them, but they are the money of fools."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Money, Men, Fools, Words)
"The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Absurdity, Living, Man, Privilege)
"I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."
- Thomas Hobbes
"A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Conscience, Judgment, Man, May)
"A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Men, Man, Words)
"Curiosity is the lust of the mind."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Curiosity, Lust, Mind)
"Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Religion, Fear)
"The flesh endures the storms of the present alone; the mind, those of the past and future as well as the present. Gluttony is a lust of the mind."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Future, Gluttony, Lust, Mind, Past, Present, Storms)
"He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Enemy, Prison)
"Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Men, Truth, Man, Pleasure, Profit)
"I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Death, Power, Desire, Mankind)
"Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Science, Knowledge, Consequences, Dependence, Fact)
"Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: War, Force, Fraud)
"Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Nature, Men, May, Will, Witty)
"In the state of nature profit is the measure of right."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Nature, Measure, Profit, Right, State)
"Prudence is but experience, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Experience, Men, Time, Prudence)
"Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Force)
"No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Error, Law, Man)
"Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Mother, Leisure, Philosophy)
"Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Glory, Laughter, Nothing)
"It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law."
- Thomas Hobbes
(Related: Wisdom, Authority, Law)