Thomas Hobbes Quotes

If nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun.

If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.

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.

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.

All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful.

Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.

For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized.

Subjects have no greater liberty in a popular than in a monarchial state. That which deceives them is the equal participation of command.

Every man may think his own cause just till it be heard and judged.

Time, and Industry, produce everyday new knowledge.

The Present only has a being in Nature; things Past have a being in the Memory only, but things to come have no being at all; the Future but a fiction of the mind.

A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life.

Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter.

No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact.

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.

Desire of praise disposeth to laudable actions.

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.

The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.

When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death.

Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject.

Do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have done to thyself.

The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History .

Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice; with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter.

For all laws are general judgements, or sentences of the legislator; as also every particular judgement is a law to him whose case is judged.

It is many times with a fraudulent Design that men stick their corrupt Doctrine with the Cloves of other mens Wit.

And as in other things, so in men, not the seller, but the buyer determines the Price.

I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking.

So easy are men to be drawn to believe any thing, from such men as have gotten credit with them; and can with gentleness and dexterity take hold of their fear and ignorance.

If men are naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors?

As soon as a thought darts, I write it down.

He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy.

The best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes.

The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.

Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.

For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself

For after the subject is removed or the eye shut, we still retain an image of the things seen, though more obscure than when we see it...Imagination, therefore, is nothing more than decaying 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.

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?

Man is distinguished not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion, from all other animals.

Geometry is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind.

Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.

A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.

Men measure not only other men, but all other things, by themselves.

Love is a person's idea about his/her needs in other person what you are attracted to.

The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.

True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.

Science [is] knowledge of the truth of Propositions and how things are called.

As a draft-animal is yoked in a wagon, even so the spirit is yoked in this body