Top 256 Quotes & Sayings by Thomas Hobbes

They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion.

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

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

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.

He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.

Words are the money of fools.

Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy.

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

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

Curiosity is the lust of the mind.

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

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

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

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.

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

If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.

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

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

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

If nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun.

Hell is Truth Seen Too Late.

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.

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

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.

Where there is no common power, there is no law

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.

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.

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.

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law

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

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

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