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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.

Thomas Hobbes

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Thomas Hobbes
Age: 91 †
Born: 1588
Born: April 5
Died: 1679
Died: December 4
Economist
Historian
Mathematician
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Politician
Translator
Westport
Wiltshire
Hobbes
Thomas Hobbsted
Thomas Hobbes of Malflutry
Power
Right
Men
Leviathan
Life
Preservation
Hath
Liberty
Use
Nature

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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.
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Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
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True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.
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And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause
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The object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time but to assure for ever, the way of his future desires.
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The value or worth of a man is, as of all other things, his price that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power.
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Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.
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Emulation is grief arising from seeing one's self, exceeded or excelled by his concurrent, together with hope to equal or exceed him in time to come, by his own ability. But envy is the same grief joined with pleasure conceived in the imagination of some ill-fortune that may befall him.
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What reason is there that he which laboreth much, and, sparing the fruits of his labor, consumeth little, should be more charged than he that, living idly, getteth little and spendeth all he gets, seeing the one hath no more protection from the commonwealth than the other?
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By how much one man has more experience of things past, than another, by so much also he is more prudent, and his expectations the seldomer fail him.
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And therefore in geometry (which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind), men begin at settling the significations of their words which settling of significations, they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning.
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A Covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always void. For... no man can transfer or lay down his Right to save himself from Death.
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Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject.
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In sum, all actions and habits are to be esteemed good or evil by their causes and usefulness in reference to the commonwealth, and not by their mediocrity, nor by their being commended. For several men praise several customs, and, contrarily, what one calls vice, another calls virtue, as their present affections lead them.
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Curiosity is the lust of the mind.
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To speak impartially, both sayings are very true: that man to man is a kind of God and that man to man is an arrant wolf. The first is true, if we compare citizens amongst themselves and the second, if we compare cities.
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So easy are men to be drawn to believe any thing, from such men as have gotten credit with them and can with gentleness and dexterity take hold of their fear and ignorance.
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And Beasts that have Deliberation , must necessarily also have Will .
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From the same it proceedeth,that men gives different names, to one and the same thing, from the difference of their own passions: As they that approve a private opinion, call it Opinion but they that mislike it, Haeresie: and yet haeresie signifies no more than private opinion but has only agreater tincture of choler
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All men, among themselves, are by nature equal. The inequality we now discern hath its spring from the civil law.
Thomas Hobbes