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Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.

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
Way
Spy
Things
Desired
Abroad
Desires
Range
Thoughts
Desire
Scouts
Find
Spies

More quotes by Thomas Hobbes

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A covenant not to defend myself from force by force is always void. For ... no man can transfer or lay down his Right to save himself. For the right men have by Nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no Covenant be relinquished. ... [The right] to defend ourselves [is the] summe of the Right of Nature.
Thomas Hobbes
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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.
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And as in other things, so in men, not the seller, but the buyer determines the Price.
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There is no such thing as perpetual tranquility of mind while we live here.
Thomas Hobbes
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Every man may think his own cause just till it be heard and judged.
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Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.
Thomas Hobbes
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Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.
Thomas Hobbes
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The right of nature... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature that is to say, of his own life.
Thomas Hobbes
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Nature itself cannot err
Thomas Hobbes
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Men measure not only other men, but all other things, by themselves.
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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.
Thomas Hobbes
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The value or worth of a man is, as of all other things, his price that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power.
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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All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.
Thomas Hobbes
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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
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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.
Thomas Hobbes
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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.
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.
Thomas Hobbes
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Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools.
Thomas Hobbes
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Those men that are so remissly governed that they dare take up arms to defend or introduce an opinion, are still in war, and their condition not peace, but only a cessation of arms for fear of one another, and they live as it were in the precincts of battle continually.
Thomas Hobbes