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And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause
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
Presumed
Every
Benefit
Things
Fit
Men
Benefits
Cause
Seeing
Causes
Order
More quotes by Thomas Hobbes
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.
Thomas Hobbes
The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.
Thomas Hobbes
For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect.
Thomas Hobbes
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
Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he is subject.
Thomas Hobbes
Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.
Thomas Hobbes
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
If nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun.
Thomas Hobbes
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
Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.
Thomas Hobbes
As, in Sense, that which is really within us, is (as I have said before) only Motion, caused by the action of external objects, but in appearance to the Sight, Light and Color to the Ear, Sound to the Nostril, Odor, &c.
Thomas Hobbes
True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.
Thomas Hobbes
As in the presence of the Master, the Servants are equall, and without any honour at all So are the Subjects, in the presence of the Soveraign. And though they shine some more, some lesse, when they are out of his sight yet in his presence, they shine no more than the Starres in presence of the Sun.
Thomas Hobbes
By how much one man has more experience of things past, than another, by so much also he is more prudent, and his expectations the seldomer fail him.
Thomas Hobbes
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?
Thomas Hobbes
Man is distinguished not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion, from all other animals.
Thomas Hobbes
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.
Thomas Hobbes
Nature itself cannot err
Thomas Hobbes
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.
Thomas Hobbes
A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life.
Thomas Hobbes