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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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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
Experience
Another
Past
Also
Prudent
Much
Fail
Things
Expectations
Men
Failing

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The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good.
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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. For the right men have by Nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no Covenant be relinquished. ... [The right] to defend ourselves [is the] summe of the Right of Nature.
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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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Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.
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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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Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.
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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.
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Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.
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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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I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.
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Ambition, and Covetousnesse are Passions that are perpetually incumbent, and pressing.
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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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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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Wisdom, properly so called, is nothing else but this: the perfect knowledge of the truth in all matters whatsoever.
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Leisure is the mother of philosophy and commonwealth, the mother of peace and leisure.
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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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But yet they that have no Science , are in better, and nobler condition with their naturall Prudence than men, that by their mis-reasoning, or by trusting them that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd generall rules.
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I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking.
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All men, among themselves, are by nature equal. The inequality we now discern hath its spring from the civil law.
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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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