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They that are discontented under monarchy, call it tyranny and they that are displeased with aristocracy, call it oligarchy: so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy, call it anarchy, which signifies the want of government and yet I think no man believes, that want of government, is any new kind of government.

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
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Aristocracy
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Anarchy
Believe
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For after the subject is removed or the eye shut, we still retain an image of the things seen, though more obscure than when we see it...Imagination, therefore, is nothing more than decaying sense.
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All men, among themselves, are by nature equal. The inequality we now discern hath its spring from the civil law.
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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.
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A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life.
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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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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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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.
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To speak impartially, both sayings are very true: that man to man is a kind of God and that man to man is an arrant wolf. The first is true, if we compare citizens amongst themselves and the second, if we compare cities.
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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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Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.
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Covenants without swords are but words.
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The first author of speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as He presented to his sight.
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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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For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself
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No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact.
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To be seduced by Orators, as a Monarch by Flatterers.
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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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Nature itself cannot err
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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.
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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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