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So easy are men to be drawn to believe any thing, from such men as have gotten credit with them and can with gentleness and dexterity take hold of their fear and ignorance.

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
Ignorance
Hold
Belief
Fear
Dexterity
Easy
Gentleness
Take
Drawn
Thing
Gotten
Believe
Credit

More quotes by Thomas Hobbes

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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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The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History .
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The flesh endures the storms of the present alone the mind, those of the past and future as well as the present. Gluttony is a lust of the mind.
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If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.
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Ambition, and Covetousnesse are Passions that are perpetually incumbent, and pressing.
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For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized.
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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.
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And therefore in geometry (which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind), men begin at settling the significations of their words which settling of significations, they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning.
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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.
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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.
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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 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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A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press.
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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From the same it proceedeth,that men gives different names, to one and the same thing, from the difference of their own passions: As they that approve a private opinion, call it Opinion but they that mislike it, Haeresie: and yet haeresie signifies no more than private opinion but has only agreater tincture of choler
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The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them.
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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.
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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.
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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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