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Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter.

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
Desire
Attaining
Another
Felicity
Stills
Continual
Still
Latter
Way
Former
Object
Objects
Progress

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It is not easy to fall into any absurdity, unless it be by the length of an account wherein he may perhaps forget what went before. For all men by nature reason alike, and well, when they have good principles.
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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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A Law of Nature, (Lex Naturalis) is a Precept, or general Rule, found out by Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same and to omit, that, by which he thinketh it may be best preserved.
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In a Democracy, look how many Demagogs that is how many powerful Orators there are with the people.
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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.
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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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The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.
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To be seduced by Orators, as a Monarch by Flatterers.
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The object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time but to assure for ever, the way of his future desires.
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Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.
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Wisdom, properly so called, is nothing else but this: the perfect knowledge of the truth in all matters whatsoever.
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There is no such thing as perpetual tranquility of mind while we live here.
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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 the public conscience.
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Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man.
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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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Emulation is grief arising from seeing one's self, exceeded or excelled by his concurrent, together with hope to equal or exceed him in time to come, by his own ability. But envy is the same grief joined with pleasure conceived in the imagination of some ill-fortune that may befall him.
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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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When a man tells me God hath spoken in a dream, I know he dreamt that God spoke to him.
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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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