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The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding or some error in reasoning or some sudden force of the passions. Defect in the understanding is ignorance in reasoning, erroneous opinion.

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
Opinion
Passions
Passion
Reasoning
Sudden
Understanding
Error
Force
Errors
Leviathan
Every
Ignorance
Erroneous
Crime
Defect
Source
Defects

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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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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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Setting themselves against reason, as often as reason is against them.
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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 first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method.
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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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As a draft-animal is yoked in a wagon, even so the spirit is yoked in this body
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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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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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How could a state be governed, or protected in its foreign relations if every individual remained free to obey or not to obey the law according to his private opinion.
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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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Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.
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Leisure is the mother of philosophy and commonwealth, the mother of peace and leisure.
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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.
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Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.
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Scientia potentia est, sed parva quia scientia egregia rara est, nec proinde apparens nisi paucissimis, et in paucis rebus. Scientiae enim ea natura est, ut esse intelligi non possit, nisi ab illis qui sunt scientia praediti.
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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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For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized.
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Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.
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The law is the public conscience.
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