Thomas Hobbes's Quotes

The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only.

Words are the money of fools.

No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.

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

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

Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter.

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.

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

Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.

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.

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.

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.

A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him.

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.

Curiosity is the 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.

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

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.

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.

Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy.

Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation.

The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.

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

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

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

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