Quote

The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.

Thomas Hobbes

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Done
Speculation
Thing
Scope
Performing
Knowledge
Science
Action
Ends

More quotes by Thomas Hobbes

Image
And as in other things, so in men, not the seller, but the buyer determines the Price.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
The first author of speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as He presented to his sight.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
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.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
The law is more easily understood by few than many words. For all words are subject to ambiguity, and therefore multiplication of words in the body of the law is multiplication of ambiguity. Besides, it seems to imply (by too much diligence) that whosoever can evade the words is without the compass of the law.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
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
Thomas Hobbes
Image
That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases rashness, with mischance injustice with violence of enemies pride, with ruin cowardice, with oppression and rebellion, with slaughter.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
All men, among themselves, are by nature equal. The inequality we now discern hath its spring from the civil law.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
It is not easy to fall into any absurdity, unless it be by the length of an account wherein he may perhaps forget what went before. For all men by nature reason alike, and well, when they have good principles.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
To be seduced by Orators, as a Monarch by Flatterers.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
As a draft-animal is yoked in a wagon, even so the spirit is yoked in this body
Thomas Hobbes
Image
Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth, had need to remember what every name he uses stands for and to place it accordingly or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twigs the more he struggles, the more belimed.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
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.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away, and with it, Prognostiques from Dreams, false Prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted then they are for civill Obedience.
Thomas Hobbes
Image
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.
Thomas Hobbes