Portrait of Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes

Leviathan, social contract

Early Modern influential 131 sayings

Sayings by Thomas Hobbes

The imagination is nothing but decaying sense.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter II
General Unverifiable

The condition of man... is a condition of war of every one against every one.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XIII
General Confirmed

No man can have in his mind a conception of the future, for the future is not yet.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter III
General Unverifiable

Ignorance of causes makes men feareful of any power invisible.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XII
General Unverifiable

The passion that above all things makes a man fearful, is the fear of death.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XIV
Food & Drink Unverifiable

The greatest good is that which is most pleasant to us.

1655 — De Corpore, Part IV, Chapter XXVII
Food & Drink Unverifiable

For what is there in the world that is not subject to change?

1655 — De Corpore, Part II, Chapter VIII
General Unverifiable

For there is no such Finis Ultimus (utmost aim) nor Summum Bonum (greatest good) as is spoken of in the books of the old moral philosophers.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XI
Food & Drink Unverifiable

When a man's discourse beginneth not with definitions, it is a sign that he gropes in the dark.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter IV
General Unverifiable

For it is not the bare words, but the scope of the speaker, that gives the words their true signification.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter V
General Unverifiable

The source of all superstition is ignorance of natural causes.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XII
General Unverifiable

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.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XIV
General Confirmed

And consequently, where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XIII
General Unverifiable

For the laws of nature, as I have shewed in the end of the 15th Chapter, are immutable and eternal.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XXVI
Self-Deprecating Unverifiable

Power and wealth, and honour, are but means to obtain power and wealth and honour.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XI
General Unverifiable

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XIII
General Unverifiable

To believe in God is to believe in a being of infinite power, infinite wisdom, and infinite goodness.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XXXI
General Unverifiable

The liberty of a subject lieth therefore only in those things, which in regulating their actions, the sovereign hath praetermitted.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter XXI
General Unverifiable

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

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter X
General Unverifiable

Riches, knowledge, and honour are but several sorts of power.

1651 — Leviathan, Chapter X
Work & Money Unverifiable
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