Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Thomas Hobbes

83 quotes

“But if one Subject giveth Counsell to another, to do anything contrary to the Lawes, whether that Counsell proceed from evil intention, or from ignorance onely, it is punishable by the Common-wealth; because ignorance of the Law, is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the Lawes to which he is subject.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“and where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruine:”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fact be vertuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth;”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As for [...] Of all passions, that which inclineth men least to break the laws is fear.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Another doctrine repugnant to Civill Society, is that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience, is Sinne; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of Good and Evill. 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 (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As also the great number of Corporations; which are as it were many lesser Common-wealths in the bowels of a greater, like wormes in the entrayles of a natural man.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time, and Industry, produce everyday new knowledge.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And whereas many men, by accident unevitable, become unable to maintain themselves by their labour; they ought not to be left to the Charity of private persons; but to be provided for, (as far-forth as the necessities of Nature require,) by the Lawes of the Common-wealth. For as it is Unchariablenesse in any man, to neglect the impotent; so it is in the Soveraign of a Common-wealth, to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain Charity.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And when all the world is overcharged with Inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is Warre, which provideth for every man, by Victory or Death.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And hereby it comes to passe, that Intemperance, is naturally punished with Diseases; Rashness, with Mischance; Injustice; with Violence of Enemies; Pride, with Ruine; Cowardice, with Oppression; Negligent government of Princes, with Rebellion; and Rebellion with Slaughter.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And for Incoherent Speech, it was amongst the Gentiles taken for one sort of Prophecy, because the Prophets of their Oracles, intoxicated with a spirit, or vapor from the cave of the Pythian Oracle at Delphi, were for a time really mad, and spake like mad-men; of whoose loose words a sense might be made to fit any event, in such sort, as all bodies are said to be made of Materia prima.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Power as is really divided, and as dangerously to all purposes, by sharing with another an Indirect Power, as a Direct one.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence, but who shall Judge?”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But if it bee well considered, The praise of Ancient Authors, proceeds not from the reverence of the Dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the Living.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For such Truth as opposeth no man's profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art goes... imitating that Rationall and most excellent worke of Nature, Man. For by Art is created that great Leviathan called a Common-Wealth or State, (in latine Civitas) which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the Soveraignty is an Artificiall Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificiall Joynts; Reward and Punishment (by which fastned to the seate of the Soveraignty, every joynt and member is moved to performe his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Naturall; The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members, are the Strength; Salus Populi (the peoples safety) its Businesse; Counsellors, by whom all things needfull for it to know, are suggested unto it, are the Memory; Equity and Lawes, an artificiall Reason and Will; Concord, Health; Sedition, Sicknesse; and Civill war, Death. Lastly, 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 (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. For who is so stupid as both to mistake in geometry, and also to persist in it, when another detects his error to him? By this it appears that reason is not, as sense and memory, born with us; nor gotten by experience only, as prudence is; but attained by industry: first in apt imposing of names; and secondly by getting a good and orderly method in proceeding from the elements, which are names, to assertions made by connexion of one of them to another; and so to syllogisms, which are the connexions of one assertion to another, till we come to a knowledge of all the consequences of names appertaining to the subject in hand; and that is it, men call science. And whereas sense and memory are but knowledge of fact, which is a thing past and irrevocable, science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another; by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we will, or the like, another time: because when we see how anything comes about, upon what causes, and by what manner; when the like causes come into our power, we see how to make it produce the like effects. Children therefore are not endued with reason at all, till they have attained the use of speech, but are called reasonable creatures for the possibility apparent of having the use of reason in time to come.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By MANNERS, I mean not here Decency of behaviour; as how one man should salute another, or how a man should wash his mouth, or pick his teeth before company, and such other points of the Small Morals; But those qualities of mankind that concern their living together in Peace and Unity. To which end we are to consider that the Felicity of this life consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such Finis ultimus (utmost aim) nor Summum Bonum (greatest good) as is spoken of in the books of the old Moral Philosophers. Nor can a man any more live whose desires are at an end than he whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The doctrine of Right and Wrong, is perpetually disputed, both by Pen and the Sword: Whereas the doctrine of Lines, and Figures, is not so; because men care not, in that subject what be truth, as a thing that crosses no mans ambition, profit, or lust. For I doubt not, but if it had been a thing contrary to any mans right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, That the three Angles of a Triangle, should be equall 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 (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And though this may seem to subtile a deduction of the Lawes of Nature, to be taken notice of by all men;whereof the most part are too busie in getting food, and the rest too negligent to understand; yet to leave all men unexcusable, they have been contracted into one easie sum, intelligble, even to the meanest capacity; and that is, Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thyselfe; which sheweth him, that he has no more to do in learning the Lawes of Nature, but, when weighing the actions of other men with his own, they seem too heavy, to put them into the other part of the balance, and his own into their place, that his own passions, and selfe love, may adde nothing to the weight; and then there is none of these Laws of Nature that will not appear unto him very reasonable.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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, and to render an account thereof to God, the Author of that law, and to none but Him. But by safety here is not meant a bare preservation, but also all other contentments of life, which every man by lawful industry, without danger or hurt to the Commonwealth, shall acquire to himself. And this is intended should be done, not by care applied to individuals, further than their protection from injuries when they shall complain; but by a general providence, contained in public instruction, both of doctrine and example; and in the making and executing of good laws to which individual persons may apply their own cases.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To say he hath spoken to him in a Dream, is no more then to say he dreamed that God spake to him; which is not of force to win beleef from any man, that knows dreams are for the most part naturall, and may proceed from former thoughts; and such dreams as that, from selfe conceit, and foolish arrogance, and false opinion of a mans own goodlinesse, or other vertue, by which he thinks he hath merited the favour of extraordinary Revelation. To say he hath seen a Vision, or heard a Voice, is to say, that he dreamed between sleeping and waking: for in such manner a man doth many times naturally take his dream for a vision, as not having well observed his own slumbering. To say he speaks by supernaturall Inspiration, is to say he finds an ardent desire to speak, or some strong opinion of himself, for which hee can alledge no naturall and sufficient reason. So that though God Almighty can speak to a man, by Dreams, Visions, Voice, and Inspiration; yet he obliges no man to beleeve he hath so done to him that pretends it; who (being a man) may erre, and (which is more) may lie.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For as there were Plants of Corn and Wine in small quantity Dispersed in the Fields and Woods, before men knew their vertue, or made use of them for their nourishment, or planted them apart in Fields,and also there have been divers true, generall, and profitable Speculations from the beginning; as being the naturall plants of humane Reason: But they were at first but few in number; men lived upon grosse Experience; there was no Method; that is to say, no Sowing, nor Planting of Knowledge by it self, apart from the Weeds, and common Plants of Errour and Conjecture: And the cause of it being the want of leasure from procuring the necessities of life, and defending themselves against their neighbours, it was impossible, till the erecting of great Common-wealths, it should be otherwise. 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.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For words are wise men's counters,--they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“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.”
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) said by 1679 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source