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Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.

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
Naturally
Necessary
Social
Nature
Government
Men
Individualistic

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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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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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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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The value or worth of a man is, as of all other things, his price that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power.
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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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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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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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If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away, and with it, Prognostiques from Dreams, false Prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted then they are for civill Obedience.
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But if one Subject giveth Counsell to another, to do anything contrary to the Lawes, whether that Counsell proceed from evil intention, or from ignorance onely, it is punishable by the Common-wealth because igorance of the Law, is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the Lawes to which he is subject.
Thomas Hobbes
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When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death.
Thomas Hobbes
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Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.
Thomas Hobbes
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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
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No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact.
Thomas Hobbes
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Wisdom, properly so called, is nothing else but this: the perfect knowledge of the truth in all matters whatsoever.
Thomas Hobbes
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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
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Immortality is a belief grounded upon other men's sayings, that they knew it supernaturally or that they knew those who knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally.
Thomas Hobbes
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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.
Thomas Hobbes
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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.
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A Covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always void. For... no man can transfer or lay down his Right to save himself from Death.
Thomas Hobbes
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There is no such thing as perpetual tranquility of mind while we live here.
Thomas Hobbes