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The passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason.

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
Reason
Men
Potent
Commonly
Passions
Passion

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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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The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History .
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For there are very few so foolish who would not rather govern themselves than be governed by others.
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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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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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Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject.
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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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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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Ambition, and Covetousnesse are Passions that are perpetually incumbent, and pressing.
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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.
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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. Error theremay be, as when we expect that which shall not be or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with untruth.
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The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.
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Life is nasty, brutish, and short
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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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I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.
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If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.
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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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For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized.
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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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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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