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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.

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
Men
War
Time
Fear
Keep
Political
Leviathan
Power
Awe
Live
Conditions
Without
Called
Every
Common

More quotes by Thomas Hobbes

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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.
Thomas Hobbes
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To conclude, The Light of humane minds is Perspicuous Words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity Reason is the pace Encrease of Science, the way and the Benefit of man-kind, the end.
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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
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Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.
Thomas Hobbes
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In a Democracy, look how many Demagogs that is how many powerful Orators there are with the people.
Thomas Hobbes
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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?
Thomas Hobbes
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For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized.
Thomas Hobbes
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If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.
Thomas Hobbes
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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. Error theremay be, as when we expect that which shall not be or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth.
Thomas Hobbes
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For there are very few so foolish who would not rather govern themselves than be governed by others.
Thomas Hobbes
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Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.
Thomas Hobbes
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A Law of Nature, (Lex Naturalis) is a Precept, or general Rule, found out by Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same and to omit, that, by which he thinketh it may be best preserved.
Thomas Hobbes
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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.
Thomas Hobbes
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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.
Thomas Hobbes
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It's not the pace of life I mind. It's the sudden stop at the end.
Thomas Hobbes
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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.
Thomas Hobbes
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The Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation.
Thomas Hobbes
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Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves.
Thomas Hobbes
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That wee have of Geometry, which is the mother of all Naturall Science, wee are not indebted for it to the Schools.
Thomas Hobbes
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But yet they that have no Science , are in better, and nobler condition with their naturall Prudence than men, that by their mis-reasoning, or by trusting them that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd generall rules.
Thomas Hobbes