Thomas Hobbes quotes - page 5

Hell is truth seen too late. (Thomas Hobbes)
Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry... no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called "Facts". They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
To speak impartially, both sayings are very true; That Man to Man is a kind of God; and that Man to Man is an arrant Wolfe. The first is true, if we compare Citizens amongst themselves; and the second, if we compare Cities. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
How could a state be governed, or protected in its foreign relations if every individual remained free to obey or not to obey the law according to his private opinion. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
The life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
The Interpretation of the Laws of Nature in a Common-wealth, dependeth not on the books of Moral Philosophy. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
What is the heart but a spring, and the nerves but so many strings, and the joints but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body? (Thomas Hobbes)
Leisure is the mother of Philosophy; and Common-wealth, the mother of Peace, and Leisure: Where first were great and flourishing Cities, there was first the study of Philosophy. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
For it is not the bare Words, but the Scope of the writer that giveth true light. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
This is the Generation of that LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently)of that Mortall God, to which we owe under the Immortal God, our peace and defence. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
The office of the sovereign, be it a monarch or an assembly, consisteth in the end for which he was trusted with the sovereign power, namely the procuration of the safety of the people, to which he is obliged by the law of nature. View quote
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. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
The source of every Crime, is some defect of the Understanding; or some error in Reasoning; or some sudden force of the Passions. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
Words are the money of fools. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation. View quote
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 Interpretation of the Laws of Nature in a Common-wealth, dependeth not on the books of Moral Philosophy. The Authority of writers, without the Authority of the Commonwealth, maketh not their opinions Law, be they never so true. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
For it is not the bare Words, but the Scope of the writer that giveth true light, by which any writing is to bee interpreted; and they that insist upon single Texts, without considering the main Designe, can derive no thing from them clearly; but rather by casting atomes of Scripture, as dust before mens eyes, make everything more obscure than it is; an ordinary artifice of those who seek not the truth, but their own advantage. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
Opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion to what men fear, and talking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seeds of religion. View quote
Thomas Hobbes
There is more in Mersenne than in all the universities together. View quote
Thomas Hobbes