Thomas Hobbes
Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.Collection: Fear
Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past.Collection: Past
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 causeCollection: Men
The Present only has a being in Nature; things Past have a being in the Memory only, but things to come have no being at all; the Future but a fiction of the mind.Collection: Memories
Life is nasty, brutish, and shortCollection: Nasty
and where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruineCollection: Men
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.Collection: Children
Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject.Collection: Ignorance
So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime.Collection: Crime
The best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes.Collection: Men
The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.Collection: Knowledge
Desire of praise disposeth to laudable actions.Collection: Desire
Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful.Collection: Hateful
The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.Collection: Mean
Leisure is the mother of philosophy; and commonwealth, the mother of peace and leisure.Collection: Mother
... it is one thing to desire, another to be in capacity fit for what we desire.Collection: Desire
Ambition, and Covetousnesse are Passions that are perpetually incumbent, and pressing.Collection: Passion
If men are naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors?Collection: War
Let a man (as most men do) rate themselves as the highest Value they can; yet their true Value is no more than it is esteemed by others.Collection: Men
Subjects have no greater liberty in a popular than in a monarchial state. That which deceives them is the equal participation of command.Collection: Liberty
Scientia potentia est, sed parva; quia scientia egregia rara est, nec proinde apparens nisi paucissimis, et in paucis rebus. Scientiae enim ea natura est, ut esse intelligi non possit, nisi ab illis qui sunt scientia praediti.Collection: Knowledge
To say God spake or appeared as he is in his own nature, is to deny his Infiniteness, Invisibility, Incomprehensibility.Collection: God
Every man may think his own cause just till it be heard and judged.Collection: Men
When a man tells me God hath spoken in a dream, I know he dreamt that God spoke to him.Collection: Dream
Love is a person's idea about his/her needs in other person what you are attracted to.Collection: Love Is
No man can be judge to his own cause.Collection: Men
A covenant not to defend myself from force by force is always void. For ... no man can transfer or lay down his Right to save himself. For the right men have by Nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no Covenant be relinquished. ... [The right] to defend ourselves [is the] summe of the Right of Nature.Collection: Men
In sum, all actions and habits are to be esteemed good or evil by their causes and usefulness in reference to the commonwealth, and not by their mediocrity, nor by their being commended. For several men praise several customs, and, contrarily, what one calls vice, another calls virtue, as their present affections lead them.Collection: Men
True and false are attributes of speech not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither truth nor falsehood. Error theremay be, as when we expect that which shall not be; or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth.Collection: Truth
Emulation is grief arising from seeing one's self, exceeded or excelled by his concurrent, together with hope to equal or exceed him in time to come, by his own ability. But envy is the same grief joined with pleasure conceived in the imagination of some ill-fortune that may befall him.Collection: Grief
From what cause the rite of baptism first proceeded is not expressed formally in the scripture, but it may be probably thought to be an imitation of the law of Moses concerning leprosy, wherein the leprous man was commanded to be kept out of the camp of Israel for a certain time, after which time being judged by the priest to be clean, he was admitted into the camp after a solemn washing. And this may therefore be a type of the washing in baptism, wherein such men as are cleansed of the leprosy of Sin by Faith, are received into the church with the solemnity of baptism.Collection: Men
Baptism is the sacrament of allegiance of them that are to be received into the Kingdom of God, that is to say, into Eternal life, that is to say, to Remission of Sin. For as Eternal life was lost by the committing, so it is recovered by the remitting of men's sins.Collection: Men
For if I should not believe all that is written by Historians, of the glorious acts of Alexander, or Caesar; I do not think the Ghost of Alexander, or Caesar, had any just cause to be offended; or any body else, but the Historian. If Livy say the Gods made once a Cow speak, and we believe it not; we distrust not God therein, but Livy. So that it is evident, that whatsoever we believe, upon no other reason, then what is drawn from authority of men only, and their writings; whether they be sent from God or not, is Faith in men only.Collection: Faith
No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact.Collection: Atheism
There is no such thing as perpetual tranquility of mind while we live here.Collection: Mind
It's my turn, to take a leap into the darkness!Collection: Darkness
For WAR, consisteth not in Battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to content by Battle is sufficiently known.... So the nature of War, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE.Collection: War
From the same it proceedeth,that men gives different names, to one and the same thing, from the difference of their own passions: As they that approve a private opinion, call it Opinion; but they that mislike it, Haeresie: and yet haeresie signifies no more than private opinion; but has only agreater tincture of cholerCollection: Passion
For all uniting of strength by private men, is, if for evil intent, unjust; if for intent unknown, dangerous to the Publique, and unjustly concealed.Collection: Men
The science which teacheth arts and handicrafts is merely science for the gaining of a living; but the science which teacheth deliverance from worldly existence, is not that the true science?Collection: Art
For naturall Bloud is in like manner made of the fruits of the Earth; and circulating, nourisheth by the way, every Member of the Body of Man.Collection: Men
The most part of men, though they have the use of reasoning a little way, as in numbering to some degree; yet it serves them to little use in common life; in which they govern themselves, some better, some worse, according to their differences of experience, quickness of memory, and inclinations to several ends; but specially according to good or evil fortune, and the errors of one another.Collection: Memories
The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors.Collection: Spiritual
There is more in Mersenne than in all the universities together.Collection: Math
But his Lordship [tells]us that God is wholly here, and wholly there, and wholly every where; because he has no parts. I cannot comprehend nor conceive this. For methinks it implies also that the whole world is also in the whole God, and in every part of God. Norcan I find anything of this in the Scripture. If I could find it there, I could believe it; and if I could find it in the public doctrine of the Church, I could easily abstain from contradicting it.Collection: Bible
For to accuse requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice.Collection: Men
Desire , to know why, and how, CURIOSITY; such as is in no living creature but Man ; so that Man is distinguished, not only by his Reason; but also by this singular Passion from other Animals ; in whom the appetite of food, and other pleasures of Sense, by predominance, take away the care of knowing causes; which is a Lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of Knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal Pleasure.Collection: Perseverance
This I know; God cannot sin, because his doing a thing makes it just, and consequently, no sin.... And therefore it is blasphemy to say, God can sin; but to say, that God can so order the world, as a sin may be necessarily caused thereby in a man, I do not see how it is any dishonor to him.Collection: God
Those men that are so remissly governed that they dare take up arms to defend or introduce an opinion, are still in war, and their condition not peace, but only a cessation of arms for fear of one another, and they live as it were in the precincts of battle continually.Collection: War