Thomas Hobbes Quotes

A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press.

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

Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.

Hell is Truth Seen Too Late.

Humans are driven by a perpetual and restless desire of power.

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.

How could a state be governed, or protected in its foreign relations if every individual remained free to obey or not to obey the law according to his private opinion.

Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law

Curiosity is the lust of the mind.

The original of all great and lasting societies consisted not in the mutual good will men had toward each other, but in the mutual fear they had of each other.

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

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry... no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; 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.

To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.

The world is governed by opinion.

And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause

Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.

Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing.

All men, among themselves, are by nature equal. The inequality we now discern hath its spring from the civil law.

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.

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

If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.

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

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

For there are very few so foolish who would not rather govern themselves than be governed by others.

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

Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy.

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.

Silence is sometimes an argument of Consent.

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 object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time; but to assure for ever, the way of his future desires.

Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind or imagined from tales publicly allowed, is religion; not allowed, superstition.

It is fairer to tax people on what they extract from the economy, as roughly measured by their consumption, than to tax them on what they produce for the economy, as roughly measured by their income.

Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past.

Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools.

For it is not the shape, but their use, that makes them angels.

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

Power as is really divided, and as dangerously to all purposes, by sharing with another an Indirect Power, as a Direct one.

Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.

It's not the pace of life I mind. It's the sudden stop at the end.

They that are discontented under monarchy, call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with aristocracy, call it oligarchy: so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy, call it anarchy, which signifies the want of government; and yet I think no man believes, that want of government, is any new kind of government.

Where there is no common power, there is no law

Immortality is a belief grounded upon other men's sayings, that they knew it supernaturally; or that they knew those who knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally.

Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.

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.

The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.

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.

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

Nature itself cannot err

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