Thomas Hobbes

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

— Thomas Hobbes

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.

— Thomas Hobbes

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

— Thomas Hobbes

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

— Thomas Hobbes

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

— Thomas Hobbes

Curiosity is the lust of the mind.

— Thomas Hobbes

Desire to know why, and how -- curiosity, which is a lust of the mind, that a perseverance of delight in the continued and indefatigable generation of knowledge -- exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.

— Thomas Hobbes

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

— Thomas Hobbes

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.

— Thomas Hobbes

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

— Thomas Hobbes

Man is distinguished, not only by his reason; but also by this singular passion from other animals... which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceeds the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.

— Thomas Hobbes

Leisure is the mother of Philosophy.

— Thomas Hobbes

No mans error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.

— Thomas Hobbes

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

— Thomas Hobbes

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

— Thomas Hobbes

For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect.

— Thomas Hobbes

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

— Thomas Hobbes

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

— Thomas Hobbes

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.

— Thomas Hobbes

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.

— Thomas Hobbes

Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.

— Thomas Hobbes

Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.

— Thomas Hobbes

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.

— Thomas Hobbes

Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools.

— Thomas Hobbes

Words are the money of fools.

— Thomas Hobbes