Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established social contract theory, the foundation of most later Western political philosophy...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth5 April 1588
atheist atheism pills
Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing.
propositions
Science [is] knowledge of the truth of Propositions and how things are called.
crime
So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime.
spring moving watches
For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs... why may we not say, that all Automata (Engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life?
atheist ignorance heart
But they that hold God to be [an incorporeal substance]do absolutely make God to be nothing at all. But how? Were they atheists? No. For though by ignorance of the consequence they said that which was equivalent to atheism, yet in their hearts they thought God a substanceSo that this atheism by consequence is a very easy thing to be fallen into, even by the most godly men of the church.
kings pain government
It is manifest therefore that they who have sovereign power, are immediate rulers of the church under Christ, and all others but subordinate to them. If that were not, but kings should command one thing upon pain of death, and priests another upon pain of damnation, it would be impossible that peace and religion should stand together.
ambition passion political
Ambition, and Covetousnesse are Passions that are perpetually incumbent, and pressing.
sick religion pills
For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect.
leviathan opinion orthodox
They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion.
authority-and-power desire leviathan
I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.
leviathan empires sitting
The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.
knowledge done action
The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.
knowledge two remembrance
By this we may understand, there be two sorts of knowledge, whereof the one is nothing else but sense, or knowledge original (as I have said at the beginning of the second chapter), and remembrance of the same; the other is called science or knowledge of the truth of propositions, and how things are called, and is derived from understanding.
beast deliberation
And Beasts that have Deliberation , must necessarily also have Will .