Thomas Hobbes Quotes

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

Hell is truth seen too late.

Leisure is the mother of philosophy.

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

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.

Covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.

A man’s conscience and his judgment is the same thing.

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

The desires, and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin.

Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind.

I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power.

The world is made up of infinite particles in motion, and man is just one small part of it.

Curiosity is the lust of the mind.

To punish a man simply because he has committed a crime would be like punishing an ox for a hurricane in which his horns were blown down.

A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.

Happiness is the continual progress of desire from one object to another.

The first task of government is to protect citizens from each other.

The final cause, end, or design of men (who naturally love liberty and dominion) which they can never forsake.

Thomas Hobbes Quotes part 2

Do not contract friendship with a man that is not better than thyself.

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

The condition of human nature… is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.

I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.

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

Nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place.

Every man is presumed to be a knave.

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.

Whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good.

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

A long life is to be wished for, but only if it is a pleasant one.

The value or worth of a man is, as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power.

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

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

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

The goodness of the intellect Results from the happy accordance of its knowledge.

The present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own.

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

When men reason, and have settled in their heads the notions of things, they must likewise settle in their minds the names that shall stand for those determined notions, to avoid equivocations and confusions.

In the state of nature… 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.

It is not wisdom but authority that makes a law.

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

The flesh endures the storms of the present alone; the mind, those of the past and future as well as the present.

The private appetite of one man can only be limited by the appetite of another.

Terrorists and criminals are often made, not born.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

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.

It is not the value of silver that causeth its value to be esteemed, but the estimation of gold.

Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul.

I am for art that is fragile and weak – the antithesis of power.

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.

A wise man doesn’t waste his time trying to control the uncontrollable.