Thomas Hobbes Quotes

For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it.

~ Thomas Hobbes

Hell is truth seen too late.

~ 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.

~ Thomas Hobbes

Curiosity is the lust of the mind.

~ Thomas Hobbes

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

~ Thomas Hobbes

And because the condition of man . . . is a condition of war of every one against every one, in which case every one is governed by his own reason, and there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth that in such a condition every man has a right to every thing, even to one another's body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man, how strong or wise soever he be, of living out the time which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live. And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason: that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule containeth the first and fundamental law of nature, which is: to seek peace and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature, which is: by all means we can to defend ourselves.

~ Thomas Hobbes

The first and fundamental law of Nature, which is, to seek peace and follow it.

~ Thomas Hobbes

For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies; that is, to the old wives' fables in England concerning ghosts and spirits, and the feats they play in the night. 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 Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: for so did the papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen power.

~ Thomas Hobbes

The universe, the whole mass of things that are, is corporeal, that is to say, body, and hath the dimensions of magnitude, length, breadth and depth. Every part of the universe is ‘body’ and that which is not ‘body’ is no part of the universe, and because the universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing, and consequently nowhere.

~ Thomas Hobbes

For such is the nature of man, 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: For they see their own wit at hand, and other mens at a distance.

~ Thomas Hobbes

Another doctrine repugnant to civil society, is that whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of good and evil. For a man's conscience and his judgement are the same thing, and as the judgement, so also the conscience may be erroneous.

~ 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. Defect in the understanding is ignorance; in reasoning, erroneous opinion.

~ Thomas Hobbes

As if it were Injustice to sell dearer than we buy; or to give more to a man than he merits. 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

Fact be virtuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth

~ Thomas Hobbes

Therefor I doubt not but, if it had been a thing contrary to any man’s right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, ‘that the three angles of a triangle should be equal to two angles of a square,’ that doctrine should have been, if not disputed, yet by the burning of all books of geometry suppressed, as far as he whom it concerned was able.

~ Thomas Hobbes

Faith is a gift of God which man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menaces of torture.

~ Thomas Hobbes

If I had read as much as other men I should have known no more than they.

~ Thomas Hobbes

Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.

~ Thomas Hobbes

During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.

~ Thomas Hobbes

The condition of man... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.

~ Thomas Hobbes

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.

~ Thomas Hobbes

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

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

In the state of nature profit is the measure of right.

~ Thomas Hobbes

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

Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.

~ Thomas Hobbes

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

Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.

~ Thomas Hobbes

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

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

~ Thomas Hobbes

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

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

~ Thomas Hobbes

Words are the money of fools.

~ Thomas Hobbes

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.

~ Thomas Hobbes

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

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