Thomas Hobbes

“Look not atthe greatness of the evil past, but the greatness of the good to follow.”

“The skill of making, and maintaining Common-wealths, consisteth in certain Rules, as doth Arithmetique and Geometry; not (as Tennis-play) on Practise onely: which Rules, neither poor men have the leisure, nor men that have had the leisure, have hitherto had the curiosity, or the method to find out.”

“For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies; that is, to the old wives' fables in England concerning ghosts and spirits, and the feats they play in the night. And if a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: for so did the papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen 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.”

“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.”

“For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it.”

“Hell is truth seen too late.”

“What is the heart but a spring, and the nerves but so many strings, and the joints but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body?”

“In the very shadows of doubt a thread of reason (so to speak) begins, by whose guidance we shall escape to the clearest light.”

“Life is nasty, brutish, and short”

“Nor can a man any more live, whose Desires are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand.”

“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?”

“A great leap in the dark”

“The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions.”

“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.”

“Give an inch, he'll take an ell.”

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

“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”

“Now I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark”

“For such is the nature of man, 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: For they see their own wit at hand, and other mens at a distance.”

“As a draft-animal is yoked in a wagon, even so the spirit is yoked in this body”

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

“Scientia potentia est.Knowledge is power.”

“I had requested all who might find aught meriting censure in my writings, to do me the favor of pointing it out to me, I may state that no objections worthy of remark have been alleged against what I then said on these questions except two, to which I will here briefly reply.”

“By consequence, or train of thoughts, I understand that succession of one thought to another which is called, to distinguish it from discourse in words, mental discourse. When a man thinketh on anything whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently. ”

“Homo homini lupus”

“For to accuse requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice.”

“... it is one thing to desire, another to be in capacity fit for what we desire.”

“Curiosity is the lust of the mind.”

“Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.”

“From whence it happens, that they which trust to books, do as they that cast up many little sums into a greater, without considering whether those little sums were rightly cast up or not; and at last finding the error visible, and not mistrusting their first grounds, know not which way to clear themselves; but spend time in fluttering over their books, as birds that entering by the chimney, and finding themselves enclosed in a chamber, flutter at the false light of a glass window, for want of wit to consider which way they came in.”

“Leisure is the mother of Philosophy”

“A man's conscience and his judgment are the same thing, and, as the judgment, so also the conscience may be erroneous”

“It is many times with a fraudulent Design that men stick their corrupt Doctrine with the Cloves of other mens Wit.”

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

“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.”

“one who, though he never digress to read a Lecture, Moral or Political, upon his own Text, nor enter into men’s hearts, further than the Actions themselves evidently guide him…filleth his Narrations with that choice of matter, and ordereth them with that Judgement, and with such perspicuity and efficacy expresseth himself that (as Plutarch saith) he maketh his Auditor a Spectator. For he setteth his Reader in the Assemblies of the People, and in their Senates, at their debating; in the Streets, at their Seditions; and in the Field, at their Battels.Quoted by Shelby Foote in his The Civil War: A Narrative – Volume 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian, Bibliographical Note, from Thomas Hobbes’ Forward to Hobbes’ translation of The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides”

“A natureza do homem é tal que, embora sejam capazes de reconhecer em muitos outros maior inteligência, maior eloqüência ou maior saber, dificilmente acreditam que haja muitos tão sábios como eles próprios. Pois vêem sua própria sabedoria bem de perto e a dos outros homens à distância.”