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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.

Thomas Hobbes

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Thomas Hobbes
Age: 91 †
Born: 1588
Born: April 5
Died: 1679
Died: December 4
Economist
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Hobbes
Thomas Hobbsted
Thomas Hobbes of Malflutry
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By consequence, or train of thoughts, I understand that succession of one thought to another which is called, to distinguish it from discourse in words, mental discourse. When a man thinketh on anything whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently.
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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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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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Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.
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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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The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors.
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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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True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.
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The passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason.
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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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Understanding is by the flame of the passions never enlightened, but dazzled.
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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.
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For it is not the shape, but their use, that makes them angels.
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The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.
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I mean by the universe, the aggregate of all things that have being in themselves and so do all men else. And because God has a being, it follows that he is either the whole universe, or part of it. Nor does his Lordship go about to disprove it, but only seems to wonder at it.
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He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome for he is still an enemy.
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Nature itself cannot err
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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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When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death.
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For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect.
Thomas Hobbes