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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

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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
Leviathan
Inclination
Restless
Perpetual
General
Mankind
Desire
Death

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The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors.
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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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The Present only has a being in Nature things Past have a being in the Memory only, but things to come have no being at all the Future but a fiction of the mind.
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The oath adds nothing to the obligation. For a covenant, if lawful, binds in the sight of God, without the oath, as much as with it if unlawful, bindeth not at all, though it be confirmed with an oath.
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As in the presence of the Master, the Servants are equall, and without any honour at all So are the Subjects, in the presence of the Soveraign. And though they shine some more, some lesse, when they are out of his sight yet in his presence, they shine no more than the Starres in presence of the Sun.
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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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The value of all things contracted for, is measured by the appetite of the contractors, and therefore the just value is that which they be contented to give.
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The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.
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All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.
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Whatsoever is the object of any man's Appetite or Desire that is it which he for his part calleth Good: and the object of his Hate and Aversion, evil.
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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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And if a man consider the original of this great Ecclesiastical Dominion, he will easily perceive, that the Papacy , is no other than the Ghost of the deceased Romane Empire , sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: For so did the Papacy start up on a Sudden out of the Ruines of that Heathen Power.
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Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.
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When a man tells me God hath spoken in a dream, I know he dreamt that God spoke to him.
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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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Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.
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It's my turn, to take a leap into the darkness!
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A Covenant not to defend my selfe from force, by force, is always voyd.
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Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.
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Understanding is by the flame of the passions never enlightened, but dazzled.
Thomas Hobbes