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

The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.

- Thomas Hobbes

They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion.

- Thomas Hobbes

Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.

- Thomas Hobbes

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

- Thomas Hobbes

Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter.

- Thomas Hobbes

A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life.

- Thomas Hobbes

Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation.

- Thomas Hobbes

The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.

- Thomas Hobbes

Prudence is but experience, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.

- Thomas Hobbes

Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.

- Thomas Hobbes

Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.

- Thomas Hobbes

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

- Thomas Hobbes

Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.

- Thomas Hobbes

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

Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.

- Thomas Hobbes

War consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.

- Thomas Hobbes

He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy.

- Thomas Hobbes

The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.

- Thomas Hobbes

That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself.

- Thomas Hobbes