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The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.

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
Living
Authors
Reverence
Mutual
Envy
Competition
Ancient
Praise
Dead
Proceeds

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Prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto.
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To say that God is an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect there is no God at all. What alleges he against it, but the School-divinity which I have already answered? Scripture he can bring none, because the word incorporeal is not found in Scripture.
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Nature itself cannot err
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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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The errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see but cannot avoid, without reckoning anew from the beginning.
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Curiosity is the lust of the mind.
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No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact.
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To be seduced by Orators, as a Monarch by Flatterers.
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For all laws are general judgements, or sentences of the legislator as also every particular judgement is a law to him whose case is judged.
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The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them.
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But if one Subject giveth Counsell to another, to do anything contrary to the Lawes, whether that Counsell proceed from evil intention, or from ignorance onely, it is punishable by the Common-wealth because igorance of the Law, is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the Lawes to which he is subject.
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A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life.
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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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Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
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Because silver and gold have their value from the matter itself, they have first this privilege, that the value of them cannot be altered by the power of one, nor of a few commonwealths, as being a common measure of the commodities of all places. But base money may easily be enhanced or abased.
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Let a man (as most men do) rate themselves as the highest Value they can yet their true Value is no more than it is esteemed by others.
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In a Democracy, look how many Demagogs that is how many powerful Orators there are with the people.
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And this Feare of things invisible, is the naturall Seed of that, which every one in himself calleth Religion and in them that worship, or feare that Power otherwise than they do, Superstition.
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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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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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