Skip to content

Portrait of Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes

(1588–1679) Philosopher Kingdom of England

285 quotes in 952 categories

Thomas Hobbes warns that giving a little can lead to taking a lot. He repeats the golden rule of treating others as you’d want to be treated. He also says that people are naturally in a state of war, so freedom means being able to act when you have the strength and wit.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Thomas Hobbes was a philosopher from the Kingdom of England.

Quick Facts About Thomas Hobbes

Born: April 5, 1588
Died: December 4, 1679
Nationality: Kingdom of England
Profession: Philosopher
Notable works: Leviathan: Or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil
Known for: Leviathan, De Cive, De Corpore, De Homine

About Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher and political theorist, best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy.

Quotes by Thomas Hobbes

Life is nasty, brutish, and short

Life

Image

Nature itself cannot err

Nature

Image

A great leap in the dark

Dark

Image

Words are the money of fools.

Fools

Image

The law is the public conscience.

Conscience

Image

Curiosity is the lust of the mind.

Curiosity

Image

“Give an inch, he'll take an ell.”

Image

Hell is Truth Seen Too Late.

Ecology

Image

Isn't your pants' zipper supposed to be in the front?

Inspirational

Image

Do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have done to thyself.

Image

Men measure not only other men, but all other things, by themselves.

Greatness

Image

Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold.

Image

The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method.

Absurd

Image

Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful.

Image

Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.

Madness

Image

It's my turn, to take a leap into the darkness!

Darkness

Image

No man is bound by the words themselves, either to kill himselfe, or any other man.

Bounds

Image

Ignorance of the law is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the laws to which he…

Bounds

Image

“Look not at the greatness of the evil past, but the greatness of the good to follow.”

Greatness

Image

The first author of speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as He presented to his sight.

Image

When a man tells me God hath spoken in a dream, I know he dreamt that God spoke to him.

Dream

Image

True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.

Image

If men are naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms and why do they have keys to…

Image

A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend…

Image

The characters of man's heart, blotted and confounded as they are with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to…

Character

Image

Scientia potentia est, sed parva; quia scientia egregia rara est, nec proinde apparens nisi paucissimis, et in paucis rebus. Scientiae enim ea…

Funny

Image

To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right…

Image

Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice; with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion,…

Cowardice

Image

The Imagination that is raised in man (or any other creature imbued with the faculty of imagining) by words, or other voluntary…

Beast

Image

The oath adds nothing to the obligation. For a covenant, if lawful, binds in the sight of God, without the oath, as…

Image

Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more…

Image

The right of nature... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation…

Freedom

Image

And I profess still, that whatsoever the church of England (the church, I say, not every doctor) shall forbid me to say…

Christ

Image

“Therefor I doubt not but, if it had been a thing contrary to any man’s right of dominion, or to the interest…

Books

Image

“The universe, the whole mass of things that are, is corporeal, that is to say, body, and hath the dimensions of magnitude,…

Materialism

Image

If God bestowed immortality on every man then when he made him, and he made many to whom he never purposed to…

Image

“Another doctrine repugnant to civil society, is that whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin; and it dependeth on the…

Civil society

Image

“For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to…

Atheism

Image

By consequence, or train of thoughts, I understand that succession of one thought to another which is called, to distinguish it from…

Image

“For by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE, (in latine CIVITAS) which is but an Artificiall Man;…

Leviathan

Image

Thomas Hobbes by topic

Men (105) Nature (28) Law (20) Inspirational (19) Life (18) Time (17) Science (17) Reason (16) Religion (15) Psychology (15) Desire (15) Language (14) War (13) Mind (13) Love (13) Liberty (12) Knowledge (12)