Thomas Hobbes
Leviathan, social contract
Sayings by Thomas Hobbes
The imagination is nothing but decaying sense.
The condition of man... is a condition of war of every one against every one.
No man can have in his mind a conception of the future, for the future is not yet.
Ignorance of causes makes men feareful of any power invisible.
The passion that above all things makes a man fearful, is the fear of death.
The greatest good is that which is most pleasant to us.
For what is there in the world that is not subject to change?
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.
When a man's discourse beginneth not with definitions, it is a sign that he gropes in the dark.
For it is not the bare words, but the scope of the speaker, that gives the words their true signification.
The source of all superstition is ignorance of natural causes.
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.
And consequently, where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice.
For the laws of nature, as I have shewed in the end of the 15th Chapter, are immutable and eternal.
Power and wealth, and honour, are but means to obtain power and wealth and honour.
Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
To believe in God is to believe in a being of infinite power, infinite wisdom, and infinite goodness.
The liberty of a subject lieth therefore only in those things, which in regulating their actions, the sovereign hath praetermitted.
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.
Riches, knowledge, and honour are but several sorts of power.