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

More quotes by Thomas Hobbes

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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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Curiosity is the lust of the mind.
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For all laws are general judgements, or sentences of the legislator as also every particular judgement is a law to him whose case is judged.
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For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized.
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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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Because silver and gold have their value from the matter itself, they have first this privilege, that the value of them cannot be altered by the power of one, nor of a few commonwealths, as being a common measure of the commodities of all places. But base money may easily be enhanced or abased.
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To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.
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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.
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The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.
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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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Prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto.
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Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful.
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Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases rashness, with mischance injustice with violence of enemies pride, with ruin cowardice, with oppression and rebellion, with slaughter.
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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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Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.
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Leisure is the mother of philosophy and commonwealth, the mother of peace and leisure.
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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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Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.
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For naturall Bloud is in like manner made of the fruits of the Earth and circulating, nourisheth by the way, every Member of the Body of Man.
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The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.
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