Quotes & Sayings About Hobbes

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

When two, or more men, know of one and the same fact, they are said to be CONSCIOUS of it one to another; which is as much as to know it together. — Thomas Hobbes

In the very shadows of doubt a thread of reason (so to speak) begins, by whose guidance we shall escape to the clearest light. — Thomas Hobbes

County library? Reference desk, please. Hello? Yes, I need a word definition. Well, that's the problem. I don't know how to spell it and I'm not allowed to say it. Could you just rattle off all the swear words you know and I'll stop you when ... Hello? — Bill Watterson

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

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. — Thomas Hobbes

Men looke not at the greatnesse of the evill past, but the greatnesse of the good to follow. — Thomas Hobbes

Hobbes is not an absolutist precisely because he is an authoritarian. His scepticism about the power of reasoning, which applied no less to the 'artificial reason' of the Sovereign than to the reasoning of the natural man, together with the rest of his individualism, separate him from the rationalist dictators of his or any age. Indeed, Hobbes, without being himself a liberal, had in him more of the philosophy of liberalism than most of its professed defenders — Efraim Podoksik

The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good. — Thomas Hobbes

It would be hard to point out any error more truly subversive of all the order and beauty, all the peace and happiness, of human society than the position that the body of men have a right to make what laws they please; or that laws can derive any authority from their institution merely and independent of the quality of the subject-matter. No arguments of policy, reason of state, or preservation of the constitution can be pleaded in favor of such a practice. They may in deed impeach the frame of that constitution; but can never touch this immovable principle. This seems to be, indeed, the principle which Hobbes broached in the last century, and which was then so frequently and so ably refuted. — Edmund Burke

Thomas Hobbes's politics are fitted only to promote tyranny, and his ethics to encourage licentiousness. — David Hume

Calvin: "I read this library book you got me."
Calvin's Mom: "What did you think of it?"
Calvin: "It really made me see things differently. It's given me a lot to think about."
Calvin's Mom: "I'm glad you enjoyed it."
Calvin: "It's complicating my life. Don't get me any more. — Bill Watterson

To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. — Thomas Hobbes

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. — Thomas Hobbes

Mom says death is as natural as birth, and it's all part of the life cycle.
She says we don't really understand it, but there are many things we don't understand, and we just have to do the best we can with the knowledge we have.
I guess that makes sense. — Bill Watterson

The best presents don't come in boxes. — Bill Watterson

Competition of praise inclineth to a reverence of antiquity. For men contend with the living, not with the dead. — Thomas Hobbes

This is a book about texts as well as their authors, it is not a textbook so much as a context book and a pretext book, concerned with settings and motives as well as the works themselves. Its success will be measured by the readers who pick up Plato's Republic, Hobbes's Leviathan, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and find themselves engrossed rather than baffled - and even when they are baffled, are happy to go on reading, interrogating, and arguing with their authors for themselves. — Alan Ryan

It's gratifying to hear that from people who care about comic art. I never know what to make of it when someone writes to say, "Calvin and Hobbes is the best strip in the paper. I like it even more than Nancy." — Bill Watterson

Ignorance of naturall causes disposeth a man to Credulity, so as to believe many times impossibilities: for such know nothing to the contrary, but that they may be true; being unable to detect the Impossibility. And Credulity, because men love to be hearkened unto in company, disposeth them to lying: so that Ignorance it selfe without Malice, is able to make a man bothe to believe lyes, and tell them; and sometimes also to invent them. — Thomas Hobbes

Liberty, to define it, is nothing other than the absence of impediments to motion — Thomas Hobbes

Desire of praise disposeth to laudable actions. — Thomas Hobbes

This is where dad burried the little raccoon.
I don't even know he existed a few days ago and now he's gone forever. It's like I found him for no reason. I had to say good-bye as soon as I said hello.
Still ... in a sad, awful, terrible way, I'm happy I met him.
What a stupid world. — Bill Watterson

Curiosity draws a man from consideration of the effect, to seek the cause. — Thomas Hobbes

If I had read as much as other men I would have known no more than they. — Thomas Hobbes

Subjects have no greater liberty in a popular than in a monarchial state. That which deceives them is the equal participation of command. — Thomas Hobbes

Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice; with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter. — Thomas Hobbes

The law is the public conscience. — Thomas Hobbes

There be as many persons of a king, as there be petty constables in his kingdom. And so there are, or else he cannot be obeyed. But I never said that a king, and every one of his persons, are the same substance. — Thomas Hobbes

Nor can a man any more live, whose Desires are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand. — Thomas Hobbes

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. — Thomas Hobbes

Her long periods of intense concentration began to be punctuated by bouts of directionless daydreaming, sudden explosions of feeling. At such times Shakespeare was too dangerous to be read closely - Hamlet whispered truths too cruel to be borne, every word in Lear hooked in flesh and could not be dislodged. As for Wilde, Hobbes, Schopenhauer . . . even cynicism, Marya saw, can't save you. — Joyce Carol Oates

Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold. — Thomas Hobbes

And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon generall, and infallible rules, called Science; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born within us; nor attained, (as Prudence,) while we look after somewhat else. — Thomas Hobbes

I mean by the universe, the aggregate of all things that have being in themselves; and so do all men else. And because God has a being, it follows that he is either the whole universe, or part of it. Nor does his Lordship go about to disprove it, but only seems to wonder at it. — 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

And because the constitution of a mans Body, is in continuall mutation; it is impossible that all the same things should alwayes cause in him the same Appetites, and aversions; much lesse can all men consent, in the Desire of almost any one and the same Object.
Good Evill
But whatsoever is the object of any mans Appetite or Desire; that is it, which he for his part calleth Good: And the object of his Hate, and Aversion, evill, And of his contempt, Vile, and Inconsiderable. For these words of Good, evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: There being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common Rule of Good and evill, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from the Person of the man (where there is no Common-wealth;) or, (in a Common-wealth,) From the Person that representeth it; or from an Arbitrator or Judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the Rule thereof. — Thomas Hobbes

For all laws are general judgements, or sentences of the legislator; as also every particular judgement is a law to him whose case is judged. — Thomas Hobbes

Calvin:"It says here that 'religion is the opiate of the masses.' ... what do you suppose that means?"
Television: " ... it means that Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet — Bill Watterson

Yow. Guys can be so insecure. — Candace Bushnell

A great leap in the dark — Thomas Hobbes

For five years he [Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)] served as personal secretary to, yes, Francis Bacon. In fact, I've noted over a course of years that the job of a secretary can be utterly fulfilling just in case one's boss happens to be Francis Bacon. — Daniel N. Robinson

Have I become the girl who waits by the phone, hoping it will ring, who asks a friend to dial her number to make sure the phone is working? — Candace Bushnell

Curiosity is the lust of the mind. — Thomas Hobbes

The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions. Defect in the understanding is ignorance; in reasoning, erroneous opinion. — Thomas Hobbes

I'm leaking brain lubricant. — Bill Watterson

Can it then be doubted, but that God, who is infinitely fine Spirit, and withal intelligent, can make and change all species and kind of body as he pleaseth? But I dare not say, that this is the way by which God Almighty worketh, because it is past my apprehension: yet it serves very well to demonstrate, that the omnipotence of God implieth no contradiction. — Thomas Hobbes

So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. — Thomas Hobbes

I never felt ostracized or made to feel strange by obsessing over 'The Onion' or 'Calvin and Hobbes.' That was considered completely normal. — Simon Rich

As a draft-animal is yoked in a wagon, even so the spirit is yoked in this body — Thomas Hobbes

I really liked it." She covers her mouth in horror.
"If I like sex, do you think it means I can't be a feminist?"
"No." I shake my head. "Because being a feminist
I think it means being in charge of your sexuality. You decide who you want to have sex with. It means not trading your sexuality for ... other things."
"Like marrying some gross guy who you're not in love with just so you can have a nice house with a picket fence."
"Or marrying a rich old geezer. Or a guy who expects you to cook him dinner every night and take care of the children," I say, thinking of Samantha.
"Or a guy who makes you have sex with him whenever he wants, even if you don't," Miranda concludes.
We look at each other in triumph, as if we've finally solved one of the world's great problems. — Candace Bushnell

No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it. — Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes said that man is a wolve for anothe one. It seems to me that this became the basic foundation ideology for the Marxians. Though, it seems also inspired in Max Weber's ides, but actually, Weber reject it. According Stjerno, who quote Weber's idea about man (2005, p. 37), that for Weber, action is social when the individual gives it a subjective meaning that takes account of the behaviour of other and lets his ouw course of action, (Weber; 1978 (1922). Social relationship,said Weber, developed when many actors took into account of the hehaviour of the actions of others. A relationship is symmetrical when each actor gives it the same meaning. However, complet symmetry, Weber maintained, Stjerno added, was rare. Generally, the parts of a social relationship orient their actions on a rational basis,zweckrational - goal-oriented, but in part; they are also motivated by their values and sense of duty,(Stjerno, Steinar: 2005) — Steinar Stjerno

I hate Calvin and Hobbes. I think its a big re-hash of formula kid strips. — Bill Griffith

Barney's Dad was really bad so Barney hatched a plan
when his dad said "Eat your peas."
Barney shouted no and ran
Barney tricked his mean old dad and locked him in the cellar
Barney's Mom never found out where he'd gone,
Cause Barney didn't tell her.
There his dad spent his life eating mice and gruel
With every bite for fifty years
he was sorry he'd been cruel — Bill Watterson

So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime. — Thomas Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes are the only two characters from my childhood reading that I return to with any regularity, and they have grown with me, yielding newer and deeper meaning. — Anthony Marra

Probably Hobbes got it right when he said that a leviathan, a third party with a monopoly on the use of legitimate use of force in a territory, might be among the biggest violence reduction techniques ever invented. — Steven Pinker

In a Democracy, look how many Demagogs that is how many powerful Orators there are with the people. — Thomas Hobbes

The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors. — Thomas Hobbes

Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money. — Thomas Hobbes

It's hard to think of another body of work that is more universally beloved - I don't think I've ever met someone who has encountered 'Calvin and Hobbes' without falling for them. — Anthony Marra

In the state of nature profit is the measure of right. — Thomas Hobbes

And whereas many men, by accident unevitable, become unable to maintain themselves by their labour; they ought not to be left to the Charity of private persons; but to be provided for, (as far-forth as the necessities of Nature require,) by the Lawes of the Common-wealth. For as it is Unchariablenesse in any man, to neglect the impotent; so it is in the Soveraign of a Common-wealth, to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain Charity. — Thomas Hobbes

We hate guys who date more than one woman at a time. I've always believed that what's unacceptable in one sex should, by definition, be unacceptable in the other. — Candace Bushnell

Good and Evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different: And diverse men differ not only in their judgment, on the senses of what is pleasant and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, but also of what is conformable, or disagreeable to Reason, in the actions of the common life. Nay, the same man, in diverse times, differs from himself, and one time praiseth, that is, calleth Good, what another time he dispraiseth, and calleth Evil. — 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

No man can be judge to his own cause. — Thomas Hobbes

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

And in these four things, opinion of ghosts , ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear , and taking of things casual for prognostics , consisteth the natural seed of religion ; which by reason of the different fancies, judgments and passions of several men, has grown up into ceremonies so different, that those which are used by one man, are for the most part ridiculous to another. — Thomas Hobbes

Leisure is the mother of Philosophy — Thomas Hobbes

You know, sometimes kids get bad grades in school because the class moves too slow for them. Einstein got D's in school. Well guess what, I get F's!!! — Bill Watterson

From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced. — Thomas Hobbes

A colleague once described political theorists as people who were obsessed with two dozen books; after half a century of grappling with Mill's essay On Liberty, or Hobbes's Leviathan, I have sometimes thought two dozen might be a little on the high side. — Alan Ryan

A private man has always the liberty (because thought is free) to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefits can accrue by men's belief, to those that pretend, or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies. — Thomas Hobbes

Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair. — Thomas Hobbes

It's a funny world, Hobbes."
"True."
"But it's not a hilarious world. ... unless you like sick humour."
"The world is probably funnier to people who don't live here. — Bill Watterson

And if a man consider the original of this great Ecclesiastical Dominion, he will easily perceive, that the Papacy , is no other than the Ghost of the deceased Romane Empire , sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: For so did the Papacy start up on a Sudden out of the Ruines of that Heathen Power. — Thomas Hobbes

Man is distinguished not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion, from all other animals. — Thomas Hobbes

The flesh endures the storms of the present alone; the mind, those of the past and future as well as the present. Gluttony is a lust of the mind. — Thomas Hobbes

He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himselfe, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind; — Thomas Hobbes

However, it was the great 18th century social philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who brought the concept of a social contract between citizens and governments sharply into political thinking, paving the way for popular democracy and constitutional republicanism. — Simon Mainwaring

Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man. — Thomas Hobbes

Virtual reality has nothing on Calvin. — Bill Watterson

The passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason. — Thomas Hobbes

There is no action of man in this life that is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences as no human providence is high enough to give a man a prospect in the end. And in this chain, there are linked together both pleasing and unpleasing events in such manner as he that will do anything for his pleasure must engage himself to suffer all the pains annexed to it. — Thomas Hobbes

For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself — Thomas Hobbes

From what cause the rite of baptism first proceeded is not expressed formally in the scripture, but it may be probably thought to be an imitation of the law of Moses concerning leprosy, wherein the leprous man was commanded to be kept out of the camp of Israel for a certain time, after which time being judged by the priest to be clean, he was admitted into the camp after a solemn washing. And this may therefore be a type of the washing in baptism, wherein such men as are cleansed of the leprosy of Sin by Faith, are received into the church with the solemnity of baptism. — Thomas Hobbes

For WAR, consisteth not in Battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to content by Battle is sufficiently known ... So the nature of War, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE. — Thomas Hobbes

And where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruine — Thomas Hobbes

It is many times with a fraudulent Design that men stick their corrupt Doctrine with the Cloves of other mens Wit. — Thomas Hobbes

For it is not the shape, but their use, that makes them angels. — Thomas Hobbes

Although, however, Hobbes's theory of Predication, according to the well-known remark of Leibnitz, and the avowal of Hobbes himself, 32 renders truth and falsity completely arbitrary, with no standard but the will of men, it must not be concluded that either Hobbes, or any of the other thinkers who have in the main agreed with him, did in fact consider the distinction between truth and error as less real, or attached less importance to it, than other people. — John Stuart Mill

This is that law of the Gospel; whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them. — Thomas Hobbes

Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves. — Thomas Hobbes

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

This a sacred rule we find
Among the nicest of mankind,
(Which never might exception brook
From Hobbes even down to Bolingbroke,)
To doubt of facts, however true,
Unless they know the causes too. — Charles Churchill

Scientific Progress goes boink? — Bill Watterson

Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing. — Thomas Hobbes

We are not to renounce our senses and experience, nor (that which is the undoubted Word of God) our natural Reason. For they are the talents which he hath put into our hands to negotiate, till the coming again of our blessed savior, and therefore not to be folded up in the napkin of an implicate faith, but employed in the purchase of justice, peace, and true religion. For though there be many things in God's Word above Reason
that is to say, which cannot by natural reason be either demonstrated or confuted
yet there is nothing contrary to it. — Thomas Hobbes