Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan (1651)

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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.

Thomas Hobbes
And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon generall, and infallible rules, called Science; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born within us; nor attained, (as Prudence,) while we look after somewhat else.

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
When a thing lies still, unless somewhat else stir it, it will lie still forever, is a truth that no man doubts of. But that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless somewhat else stay it, though the reason be the same, namely, that nothing can change itself, is not so easily assented to.

Thomas Hobbes
By how much one man has more experience of things past, than another, by so much also he is more prudent, and his expectations the seldomer fail him.

Thomas Hobbes
Geometry... is the Mother of all Natural Science.

Thomas Hobbes
The best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes.

Thomas Hobbes
The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors.

Thomas Hobbes
There is no action of man in this life that is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences as no human providence is high enough to give a man a prospect in the end. And in this chain, there are linked together both pleasing and unpleasing events in such manner as he that will do anything for his pleasure must engage himself to suffer all the pains annexed to it.

Thomas Hobbes
To say God spake or appeared as he is in his own nature, is to deny his Infiniteness, Invisibility, Incomprehensibility.

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

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

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

Thomas Hobbes
The signs of science are, some certain and infallible; some, uncertain. Certain, when he that pretendeth the science of anything, can teach the same; that is to say, demonstrate the truth thereof perspicuously to another; uncertain, when only some particular events answer to his pretence, and upon many occasions prove so as he says they must.

Thomas Hobbes
And if a man consider the original of this great Ecclesiastical Dominion, he will easily perceive, that the Papacy, is no other than the Ghost of the deceased Romane Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: For so did the Papacy start up on a Sudden out of the Ruines of that Heathen Power.

Thomas Hobbes
Time, and Industry, produce everyday new knowledge.

Thomas Hobbes
But all this language gotten, and augmented by Adam and his posterity, was again lost at the tower of Babel, when by the hand of God, every man was stricken for his rebellion, with an oblivion of his former language.

Thomas Hobbes
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. The cause whereof is that the object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time, but to assure forever the way of his future desire. And therefore the voluntary actions and inclinations of all men tend not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life, and differ only in the way, which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions in diverse men, and partly from the difference of the knowledge or opinion each one has of the causes which produce the effect desired.

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
For Prudence, is but Experience; which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.

Thomas Hobbes
The most part of men, though they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in numbering to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life; in which they govern themselves, some better, some worse, according to their differences of experience, quickness of memory, and inclinations to several ends; but specially according to good or evil fortune, and the errors of one another.

Thomas Hobbes
When we say anything is infinite, we signify only that we are not able to conceive the ends and bounds of the thing named.

Thomas Hobbes
"Imagination," therefore, is nothing but "decaying sense;" and is found in men, and many other living creatures, as well sleeping, as waking.

Thomas Hobbes
The Imagination that is raised in man (or any other creature imbued with the faculty of imagining) by words, or other voluntary signs, is that we generally call Understanding; and is common to Man and Beasts.

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