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

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

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

Curiosity is the lust of the mind.
Thomas Hobbes

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.
Thomas Hobbes

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

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
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

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


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

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

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.
Thomas Hobbes

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.
Thomas Hobbes

Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy.
Thomas Hobbes

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

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

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

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