Thomas Hobbes Quotes

197 Sourced Quotes

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.

Thomas Hobbes
Wisdom, properly so called, is nothing else but this: the perfect knowledge of the truth in all matters whatsoever.

Thomas Hobbes
It is not easy to fall into any absurdity, unless it be by the length of an account; wherein he may perhaps forget what went before. For all men by nature reason alike, and well, when they have good principles.

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
The value of all things contracted for, is measured by the appetite of the contractors, and therefore the just value is that which they be contented to give.

Thomas Hobbes
Nature (the Art whereby God hath made and governs the World) is by the Art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an Artificial Animal. For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all Automata (Engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life?

Thomas Hobbes
Understanding is by the flame of the passions never enlightened, but dazzled.

Thomas Hobbes
The Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation.

Thomas Hobbes
It is impossible to make any profound inquiry into natural causes without being inclined thereby to believe there is one God eternal.

Thomas Hobbes
The passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason.

Thomas Hobbes
When the nature of the thing is incomprehensible, I can acquiesce in the Scripture: but when the signification of words is incomprehensible, I cannot acquiesce in the authority of a Schoolman.

Thomas Hobbes
No man can have in his mind an image of infinite magnitude; nor conceive infinite swiftness, infinite time, or infinite force, or inmate power.

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

Thomas Hobbes
Because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts, I am well satisfied that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake.

Thomas Hobbes
Competition of praise inclineth to a reverence of antiquity. For men contend with the living, not with the dead.

Thomas Hobbes
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.

Thomas Hobbes
The oath adds nothing to the obligation. For a covenant, if lawful, binds in the sight of God, without the oath, as much as with it; if unlawful, bindeth not at all, though it be confirmed with an oath.

Thomas Hobbes
From desire ariseth the thought of some means we have seen produce the like of that which we aim at; and from the thought of that, the thought of means to that mean; and so continually till we come to some beginning within our own power.

Thomas Hobbes
To say that God is an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect there is no God at all. What alleges he against it, but the School-divinity which I have already answered? Scripture he can bring none, because the word incorporeal is not found in Scripture.

Thomas Hobbes
The most noble and profitable invention of all other, was that of SPEECH, consisting of Names or Appellations, and their Connexion; whereby men register their Thoughts; recall them when they are past; and also declare them one to another for mutuall utility and conversation; without which, there had been amongst men, neither Commonwealth, nor Society, nor Contract, nor Peace, no more than amongst Lyons, Bears, and Wolves.

Thomas Hobbes
I mean by the universe, the aggregate of all things that have being in themselves; and so do all men else. And because God has a being, it follows that he is either the whole universe, or part of it. Nor does his Lordship go about to disprove it, but only seems to wonder at it.

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
The law is more easily understood by few than many words. For all words are subject to ambiguity, and therefore multiplication of words in the body of the law is multiplication of ambiguity. Besides, it seems to imply (by too much diligence) that whosoever can evade the words is without the compass of the law.

Thomas Hobbes
Science, like dress, has its fashions, and the changes in the one are almost as sudden and radical as in the other. Many a time has a theory become old and given place to a newer sensation, only to be later rehabilitated after its earlier service has been forgotten.

Thomas Hobbes
Setting themselves against reason, as often as reason is against them.

Thomas Hobbes
As much experience, is "prudence;" so, is much science "sapience."

Thomas Hobbes
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.

Thomas Hobbes
Men are not therefore put to death, or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious and contrary to men's preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest, inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and none else, frameth and maketh men's wills such as men would have them.

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