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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.

-Thomas Hobbes

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But Yet They That

Thomas Hobbes

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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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If Any Two Men Desire The Same Thing, Which Nevertheless They Cannot Both Enjoy, They Become Enemies.

If We Could Suppose A Great Multitude Of Men To Consent To The Observation Of Justice, And Other Laws Of Nature, Without A Common Power To Keep Them All In Awe; We Might As Well Suppose All Mankind To Do The Same; And Then There Neither Would Be Nor Need To Be Any Civil Government Or Commonwealth At All, Because There Would Be Peace Without Subjection.

As In The Presence Of The Master, The Servants Are Equall, And Without Any Honour At All; So Are The Subjects, In The Presence Of The Soveraign. And Though They Shine Some More, Some Lesse, When They Are Out Of His Sight; Yet In His Presence, They Shine No More Than The Starres In Presence Of The Sun.

Desire , To Know Why, And How, Curiosity; Such As Is In No Living Creature But Man ; So That Man Is Distinguished, Not Only By His Reason; But Also By This Singular Passion From Other Animals ; In Whom The Appetite Of Food, And Other Pleasures Of Sense, By Predominance, Take Away The Care Of Knowing Causes; Which Is A Lust Of The Mind, That By A Perseverance Of Delight In The Continual And Indefatigable Generation Of Knowledge, Exceedeth The Short Vehemence Of Any Carnal Pleasure.

A Free Man Is He That, In Those Things Which By His Strength And Wit He Is Able To Do, Is Not Hindered To Do What He Has A Will To.

Corporations Are "worms In The Body Politic"

How Could A State Be Governed, Or Protected In Its Foreign Relations If Every Individual Remained Free To Obey Or Not To Obey The Law According To His Private Opinion.

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.

Where There Is No Common Power, There Is No Law

Fact Be Vertuous, Or Vicious, As Fortune Pleaseth

As A Draft-animal Is Yoked In A Wagon, Even So The Spirit Is Yoked In This Body

He That Is To Govern A Whole Nation , Must Read In Himself, Not This, Or That Particular Man; But Mankind; Which Though It Be Hard To Do, Harder Than To Learn Any Language, Or Science; Yet, When I Shall Have Set Down My Own Reading Orderly, And Perspicuously, The Pains Left Another, Will Be Only To Consider, If He Also Find Not The Same In Himself. For This Kind Of Doctrine, Admitteth No Other Demonstration.

The Register Of Knowledge Of Fact Is Called History .

And As In Other Things, So In Men, Not The Seller, But The Buyer Determines The Price.

Hell Is Truth Seen Too Late.

The Imagination That Is Raised In Man (or Any Other Creature Imbued With The Faculty Of Imagining) By Words, Or Other Voluntary Signs, Is That We Generally Call Understanding; And Is Common To Man And Beasts.

The End Of Knowledge Is Power ... The Scope Of All Speculation Is The Performing Of Some Action Or Thing To Be Done.

No Arts, No Letters - No Society.

The Enemy Has Been Here In The Night Of Our Natural Ignorance, And Sown The Tares Of Spiritual Errors.

I Put For The General Inclination Of All Mankind, A Perpetual And Restless Desire Of Power After Power, That Ceaseth Only In Death.

Authority And Power

This I Know; God Cannot Sin, Because His Doing A Thing Makes It Just, And Consequently, No Sin.... And Therefore It Is Blasphemy To Say, God Can Sin; But To Say, That God Can So Order The World, As A Sin May Be Necessarily Caused Thereby In A Man, I Do Not See How It Is Any Dishonor To Him.

To Speak Impartially, Both Sayings Are Very True: That Man To Man Is A Kind Of God; And That Man To Man Is An Arrant Wolf. The First Is True, If We Compare Citizens Amongst Themselves; And The Second, If We Compare Cities.

The "value" Or "worth" Of A Man Is, As Of All Other Things, His Price; That Is To Say, So Much As Would Be Given For The Use Of His Power.

If Men Are Naturally In A State Of War, Why Do They Always Carry Arms And Why Do They Have Keys To Lock Their Doors?

Because Waking I Often Observe The Absurdity Of Dreams, But Never Dream Of The Absurdities Of My Waking Thoughts, I Am Well Satisfied That Being Awake, I Know I Dream Not; Though When I Dream, I Think Myself Awake.

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.

The Power Of A Man Is His Present Means To Obtain Some Future Apparent Good.

So Easy Are Men To Be Drawn To Believe Any Thing, From Such Men As Have Gotten Credit With Them; And Can With Gentleness And Dexterity Take Hold Of Their Fear And Ignorance.

If I Had Read As Much As Other Men I Would Have Known No More Than They.

When It Happeneth That A Man Signifieth Unto Us Two Contradictory Opinions Whereof The One Is Clearly And Directly Signified, Andthe Other Either Drawn From That By Consequence, Or Not Known To Be Contradictory To It; Then (when He Is Not Present To Explicate Himself Better) We Are To Take The Former Of His Opinions; For That Is Clearly Signified To Be His, And Directly, Whereas The Other Might Proceed From Error In The Deduction, Or Ignorance Of The Repugnancy.

Men Measure Not Only Other Men, But All Other Things, By Themselves.

Corporations Are May Lesser Commonwealths In The Bowels Of A Greater, Like Worms In The Entrails Of A Natural Man.

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.

Desire Of Praise Disposeth To Laudable Actions.

He That Is Taken And Put Into Prison Or Chains Is Not Conquered, Though Overcome; For He Is Still An Enemy.

Religions Are Like Pills, Which Must Be Swallowed Whole Without Chewing.

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.

The Obligation Of Subjects To The Sovereign Is Understood To Last As Long, And No Longer, Than The Power Lasteth By Which He Is Able To Protect Them.

Prophecy Is Many Times The Principal Cause Of The Events Foretold.

A Law Of Nature, (lex Naturalis) Is A Precept, Or General Rule, Found Out By Reason, By Which A Man Is Forbidden To Do, That, Which Is Destructive Of His Life, Or Taketh Away The Means Of Preserving The Same; And To Omit, That, By Which He Thinketh It May Be Best Preserved.

Whatsoever Therefore Is Consequent To A Time Of War, Where Every Man Is Enemy To Every Man, The Same Consequent To The Time Wherein Men Live Without Other Security Than What Their Own Strength And Their Own Invention Shall Furnish Them Withal. In Such Condition There Is No Place For Industry... No Knowledge Of The Face Of The Earth; No Account Of Time; No Arts; No Letters; No Society; And Which Is Worst Of All, Continual Fear, And Danger Of Violent Death; And The Life Of Man, Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, And Short.

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.

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.

Understanding Is By The Flame Of The Passions Never Enlightened, But Dazzled.

The Disembodied Spirit Is Immortal; There Is Nothing Of It That Can Grow Old Or Die. But The Embodied Spirit Sees Death On The Horizon As Soon As Its Day Dawns.

Prudence Is A Presumption Of The Future, Contracted From The Experience Of Time Past.

It Is Not Wisdom But Authority That Makes A Law

Let A Man (as Most Men Do) Rate Themselves As The Highest Value They Can; Yet Their True Value Is No More Than It Is Esteemed By Others.

The World Is Governed By Opinion.

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 From Death.

Life In The State Of Nature Is Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, And Short.

That Wee Have Of Geometry, Which Is The Mother Of All Naturall Science, Wee Are Not Indebted For It To The Schools.

The Object Of Man's Desire Is Not To Enjoy Once Only, And For One Instant Of Time; But To Assure For Ever, The Way Of His Future Desires.

Passions Unguided Are For The Most Part Mere Madness.

... It Is One Thing To Desire, Another To Be In Capacity Fit For What We Desire.

But If One Subject Giveth Counsell To Another, To Do Anything Contrary To The Lawes, Whether That Counsell Proceed From Evil Intention, Or From Ignorance Onely, It Is Punishable By The Common-wealth; Because Igorance Of The Law, Is No Good Excuse, Where Every Man Is Bound To Take Notice Of The Lawes To Which He Is Subject.

Faith Is A Gift Of God, Which Man Can Neither Give Nor Take Away By Promise Of Rewards Or Menace Of Torture.

For It Is Not The Shape, But Their Use, That Makes Them Angels.

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.

Force And Fraud Are In War The Two Cardinal Virtues.

The Present Only Has A Being In Nature; Things Past Have A Being In The Memory Only, But Things To Come Have No Being At All; The Future But A Fiction Of The Mind.

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.

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.

The First And Fundamental Law Of Nature, Which Is, To Seek Peace And Follow It.

Obligation Is Thraldom, And Thraldom Is Hateful.

The Condition Of Man... Is A Condition Of War Of Everyone Against Everyone.

Intemperance Is Naturally Punished With Diseases; Rashness, With Mischance; Injustice; With Violence Of Enemies; Pride, With Ruin; Cowardice, With Oppression; And Rebellion, With Slaughter.

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.

Fear Of Power Invisible, Feigned By The Mind Or Imagined From Tales Publicly Allowed, Is Religion; Not Allowed, Superstition.

And Because The Condition Of Man, (as Hath Been Declared In The Precedent Chapter) Is A Condition Of Warre Of Every One Against Everyone; In Which Case Every One Is Governed By His Own Reason; And There Is Nothing He Can Make Use Of, That May Not Be A Help Unto Him, In Preserving His Life Against His Enemyes; It Followeth, That In Such A Condition, Every Man Has A Right To Every Thing; Even To One Anothers Body.

Nature Hath Made Men So Equal In The Faculties Of Body And Mind, As That Though There Be Found One Man Sometimes Manifestly Stronger In Body, Or Of Quicker Mind Than Another, Yet When All Is Reckoned Together, The Difference Between Man And Man Is Not So Considerable As That One Man Can Thereupon Claim To Himself Any Benefit To Which Another May Not Pretend As Well As He.

The Privilege Of Absurdity; To Which No Living Creature Is Subject, But Man Only.

Every Man May Think His Own Cause Just Till It Be Heard And Judged.

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.

Seeing Then That Truth Consisteth In The Right Ordering Of Names In Our Affirmations, A Man That Seeketh Precise Truth, Had Need To Remember What Every Name He Uses Stands For; And To Place It Accordingly; Or Else He Will Find Himself Entangled In Words, As A Bird In Lime-twigs; The More He Struggles, The More Belimed.

It Is Fairer To Tax People On What They Extract From The Economy, As Roughly Measured By Their Consumption, Than To Tax Them On What They Produce For The Economy, As Roughly Measured By Their Income.

No Man Is Bound By The Words Themselves, Either To Kill Himselfe, Or Any Other Man.

A Great Leap In The Dark

A Covenant Not To Defend My Selfe From Force, By Force, Is Always Voyd.

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.

But His Lordship [tells]us That God Is Wholly Here, And Wholly There, And Wholly Every Where; Because He Has No Parts. I Cannot Comprehend Nor Conceive This. For Methinks It Implies Also That The Whole World Is Also In The Whole God, And In Every Part Of God. Norcan I Find Anything Of This In The Scripture. If I Could Find It There, I Could Believe It; And If I Could Find It In The Public Doctrine Of The Church, I Could Easily Abstain From Contradicting It.

It's Not The Pace Of Life I Mind. It's The Sudden Stop At The End.

The Right Of Nature... Is The Liberty Each Man Hath To Use His Own Power, As He Will Himself, For The Preservation Of His Own Nature; That Is To Say, Of His Own Life.

Emulation Is Grief Arising From Seeing One's Self, Exceeded Or Excelled By His Concurrent, Together With Hope To Equal Or Exceed Him In Time To Come, By His Own Ability. But Envy Is The Same Grief Joined With Pleasure Conceived In The Imagination Of Some Ill-fortune That May Befall Him.

They That Are Discontented Under Monarchy, Call It Tyranny; And They That Are Displeased With Aristocracy, Call It Oligarchy: So Also, They Which Find Themselves Grieved Under A Democracy, Call It Anarchy, Which Signifies The Want Of Government; And Yet I Think No Man Believes, That Want Of Government, Is Any New Kind Of Government.

And Where Men Build On False Grounds, The More They Build, The Greater Is The Ruine

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.

The Value Of All Things Contracted For, Is Measured By The Appetite Of The Contractors, And Therefore The Just Value Is That Which They Be Contented To Give.

For All Uniting Of Strength By Private Men, Is, If For Evil Intent, Unjust; If For Intent Unknown, Dangerous To The Publique, And Unjustly Concealed.

From The Same It Proceedeth,that Men Gives Different Names, To One And The Same Thing, From The Difference Of Their Own Passions: As They That Approve A Private Opinion, Call It Opinion; But They That Mislike It, Haeresie: And Yet Haeresie Signifies No More Than Private Opinion; But Has Only Agreater Tincture Of Choler

Those Men That Are So Remissly Governed That They Dare Take Up Arms To Defend Or Introduce An Opinion, Are Still In War, And Their Condition Not Peace, But Only A Cessation Of Arms For Fear Of One Another, And They Live As It Were In The Precincts Of Battle Continually.

And This Feare Of Things Invisible, Is The Naturall Seed Of That, Which Every One In Himself Calleth Religion; And In Them That Worship, Or Feare That Power Otherwise Than They Do, Superstition.

Time, And Industry, Produce Everyday New Knowledge.

Silence Is Sometimes An Argument Of Consent.

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.

From Whence It Follows, That Were The Publique And Private Interest Are Most Closely United, There Is The Publique Most Advanced.

The Cause Of Sense, Is The External Body, Or Object, Which Presseth The Organ Proper To Each Sense, Either Immediately, As In Thetaste And Touch; Or Mediately, As In Seeing, Hearing, And Smelling: Which Pressure, By The Mediation Of Nerves, And Other Strings, And Membranes Of The Body, Continued Inwards To The Brain, And Heart, Causeth There A Resistance, Or Counter- Pressure, Or Endeavor Of The Heart, To Deliver It Self: Which Endeavor Because Outward, Seemeth To Be Some Matter Without.

Christian Kings May Erre In Deducing A Consequence, But Who Shall Judge?

Fear Of Things Invisible Is The Natural Seed Of That Which Everyone In Himself Calleth Religion.

The Most Noble And Profitable Invention Of All Other, Was That Of Speech, Consisting Of Names Or Appellations, And Their Connexion; Whereby Men Register Their Thoughts; Recall Them When They Are Past; And Also Declare Them One To Another For Mutuall Utility And Conversation; Without Which, There Had Been Amongst Men, Neither Commonwealth, Nor Society, Nor Contract, Nor Peace, No More Than Amongst Lyons, Bears, And Wolves.

If Nobody Makes You Do It, It Counts As Fun.

The Errors Of Definitions Multiply Themselves According As The Reckoning Proceeds; And Lead Men Into Absurdities, Which At Last They See But Cannot Avoid, Without Reckoning Anew From The Beginning.

The Papacy Is Not Other Than The Ghost Of The Deceased Roman Empire, Sitting Crowned Upon The Grave Thereof.

Science [is] Knowledge Of The Truth Of Propositions And How Things Are Called.

Power As Is Really Divided, And As Dangerously To All Purposes, By Sharing With Another An Indirect Power, As A Direct One.

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.

Curiosity Is The Lust Of The Mind.

Leisure Is The Mother Of Philosophy; And Commonwealth, The Mother Of Peace And Leisure.

The Secret Thoughts Of A Man Run Over All Things, Holy, Profane, Clean, Obscene, Grave, And Light, Without Shame Or Blame.

There Is No Such Thing As Perpetual Tranquillity Of Mind While We Live Here; Because Life Itself Is But Motion, And Can Never Be Without Desire, Nor Without Fear, No More Than Without Sense.

This Is That Law Of The Gospel; Whatsoever You Require That Others Should Do To You, That Do Ye To Them.

A Man's Conscience And His Judgment Is The Same Thing; And As The Judgment, So Also The Conscience, May Be Erroneous.

I Know Not How The World Will Receive It, Nor How It May Reflect On Those That Shall Seem To Favor It. For In A Way Beset With Those That Contend, On One Side For Too Great Liberty , And On The Other Side For Too Much Authority , 'tis Hard To Passe Between The Points Of Both Unwounded.

It's My Turn, To Take A Leap Into The Darkness!

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

Nature Itself Cannot Err

If This Superstitious Fear Of Spirits Were Taken Away, And With It, Prognostiques From Dreams, False Prophecies, And Many Other Things Depending Thereon, By Which, Crafty Ambitious Persons Abuse The Simple People, Men Would Be Much More Fitted Then They Are For Civill Obedience.

Ambition, And Covetousnesse Are Passions That Are Perpetually Incumbent, And Pressing.

Humans Are Driven By A Perpetual And Restless Desire Of Power.

During The Time Men Live Without A Common Power To Keep Them All In Awe, They Are In That Conditions Called War; And Such A War, As If Of Every Man, Against Every Man.

Sudden Glory Is The Passion Which Maketh Those Grimaces Called Laughter.

A Man Cannot Lay Down The Right Of Resisting Them That Assault Him By Force, To Take Away His Life.

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.

They That Approve A Private Opinion, Call It Opinion; But They That Dislike It, Heresy; And Yet Heresy Signifies No More Than Private Opinion.

The Praise Of Ancient Authors Proceeds Not From The Reverence Of The Dead, But From The Competition And Mutual Envy Of The Living.

Wisdom, Properly So Called, Is Nothing Else But This: The Perfect Knowledge Of The Truth In All Matters Whatsoever.

The Interpretation Of The Laws Of Nature In A Common-wealth, Dependeth Not On The Books Of Moral Philosophy. The Authority Of Writers, Without The Authority Of The Commonwealth, Maketh Not Their Opinions Law, Be They Never So True.

Whatsoever Is The Object Of Any Man's Appetite Or Desire; That Is It Which He For His Part Calleth Good: And The Object Of His Hate And Aversion, Evil.

Government Is Necessary, Not Because Man Is Naturally Bad... But Because Man Is By Nature More Individualistic Than Social.

For There Are Very Few So Foolish Who Would Not Rather Govern Themselves Than Be Governed By Others.

And I Profess Still, That Whatsoever The Church Of England (the Church, I Say, Not Every Doctor) Shall Forbid Me To Say In Matterof Faith, I Shall Abstain From Saying It, Excepting This Point, That Jesus Christ, The Son Of God, Died For My Sins. As For Other Doctrines, I Think It Unlawful, If The Church Define Them, For Any Member Of The Church To Contradict Them.

All Men, Among Themselves, Are By Nature Equal. The Inequality We Now Discern Hath Its Spring From The Civil Law.

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?

Leisure Is The Mother Of Philosophy.

Subjects Have No Greater Liberty In A Popular Than In A Monarchial State. That Which Deceives Them Is The Equal Participation Of Command.

True And False Are Attributes Of Speech Not Of Things. And Where Speech Is Not, There Is Neither Truth Nor Falsehood. Error Theremay Be, As When We Expect That Which Shall Not Be; Or Suspect What Has Not Been: But In Neither Case Can A Man Be Charged With Untruth.

Curiosity Draws A Man From Consideration Of The Effect, To Seek The Cause.

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

And Beasts That Have Deliberation , Must Necessarily Also Have Will .

The Best Men Are The Least Suspicious Of Fraudulent Purposes.

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.

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.

The Science Which Teacheth Arts And Handicrafts Is Merely Science For The Gaining Of A Living; But The Science Which Teacheth Deliverance From Worldly Existence, Is Not That The True Science?

No Man Can Be Judge To His Own Cause.

If I Read As Many Books As Most Men Do, I Would Be As Dull-witted As They Are.

The Most Part Of Men, Though They Have The Use Of Reasoning A Little Way, As In Numbering To Some Degree; Yet It Serves Them To Little Use In Common Life; In Which They Govern Themselves, Some Better, Some Worse, According To Their Differences Of Experience, Quickness Of Memory, And Inclinations To Several Ends; But Specially According To Good Or Evil Fortune, And The Errors Of One Another.

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.

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.

Words Are Wise Men's Counters, They Do But Reckon By Them: But They Are The Money Of Fools, That Value Them By The Authority Of An Aristotle, A Cicero, Or A Thomas, Or Any Other Doctor Whatsoever, If But A Man.

For 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, For They See Their Own Wit At Hand, And Other Men's At A Distance. But This Proveth Rather That Men Are In That Point Equal, Than Unequal. For There Is Not Ordinarily A Greater Sign Of The Equal Distribution Of Any Thing Than That Every Man Is Contented With His Share.

Felicity Is A Continual Progress Of The Desire From One Object To Another, The Attaining Of The Former Being Still But The Way To The Latter.

For After The Subject Is Removed Or The Eye Shut, We Still Retain An Image Of The Things Seen, Though More Obscure Than When We See It...imagination, Therefore, Is Nothing More Than Decaying Sense.

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.

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.

There Is More In Mersenne Than In All The Universities Together.

Baptism Is The Sacrament Of Allegiance Of Them That Are To Be Received Into The Kingdom Of God, That Is To Say, Into Eternal Life, That Is To Say, To Remission Of Sin. For As Eternal Life Was Lost By The Committing, So It Is Recovered By The Remitting Of Men's Sins.

The Passions Of Men Are Commonly More Potent Than Their Reason.

Leisure Can Be One Of The Mothers Of Philosophy.

When A Man Tells Me God Hath Spoken In A Dream, I Know He Dreamt That God Spoke To Him.

A Naturall Foole That Could Never Learn By Heart The Order Of Numerall Words, As One , Two , And Three , May Observe Every Stroak Of The Clock, And Nod To It, Or Say One, One, One; But Can Never Know What Houre It Strikes.

Opinion Of Ghosts, Ignorance Of Second Causes, Devotion To What Men Fear, And Talking Of Things Casual For Prognostics, Consisteth The Natural Seeds Of Religion

Thoughts Are To The Desires As Scouts And Spies, To Range Abroad, And Find The Way To The Things Desired.

I Am About To Take My Last Voyage, A Great Leap In The Dark.

But All This Language Gotten, And Augmented By Adam And His Posterity, Was Again Lost At The Tower Of Babel , When By The Hand Of God, Every Man Was Stricken For His Rebellion, With An Oblivion Of His Former Language.

For If All Things Were Equally In All Men, Nothing Would Be Prized.

Science Is The Knowledge Of Consequences, And Dependence Of One Fact Upon Another.

For It Is Not The Bare Words, But The Scope Of The Writer That Giveth True Light, By Which Any Writing Is To Bee Interpreted; And They That Insist Upon Single Texts, Without Considering The Main Designe, Can Derive No Thing From Them Clearly; But Rather By Casting Atomes Of Scripture, As Dust Before Mens Eyes, Make Everything More Obscure Than It Is; An Ordinary Artifice Of Those Who Seek Not The Truth, But Their Own Advantage.

Because Silver And Gold Have Their Value From The Matter Itself, They Have First This Privilege, That The Value Of Them Cannot Be Altered By The Power Of One, Nor Of A Few Commonwealths, As Being A Common Measure Of The Commodities Of All Places. But Base Money May Easily Be Enhanced Or Abased.

The Reputation Of Power Is Power.

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.

Life Is Nasty, Brutish, And Short

As Soon As A Thought Darts, I Write It Down.

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.

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.

The Scripture Was Written To Shew Unto Men The Kingdom Of God; And To Prepare Their Minds To Become His Obedient Subjects; Leavingthe World, And The Philosophy Thereof, To The Disputation Of Men, For The Exercising Of Their Natural Reason.

And For Incoherent Speech, It Was Amongst The Gentiles Taken For One Sort Of Prophecy, Because The Prophets Of Their Oracles, Intoxicated With A Spirit, Or Vapor From The Cave Of The Pythian Oracle At Delphi, Were For A Time Really Mad, And Spake Like Mad-men; Of Whoose Loose Words A Sense Might Be Made To Fit Any Event, In Such Sort, As All Bodies Are Said To Be Made Of Materia Prima .

[necessity Is] The Sum Of All Things, Which Being Now Existent, Conduce And Concur To The Production Of That Action Hereafter, Whereof If Any One Thing Now Were Wanting, The Effect Could Not Be Produced. This Concourse Of Causes, Whereof Every One Is Determined To Be Such As It Is By A Like Concourse Of Former Causes, May Well Be Called (in Respect They Were All Set And Ordered By The Eternal Causes Of All Things, God Almighty) The Decree Of God.

True And False Are Attributes Of Speech, Not Of Things. And Where Speech Is Not, There Is Neither Truth Nor Falsehood.

He That Has Most Experience [is] So Much More Prudent Than He That Is New, As Not To Be Equalled By Any Advantage Of Natural And Extemporary Wit- Though Many Young Men Think The Contrary.

Heresy Is A Word Which, When It Is Used Without Passion, Signifies A Private Opinion. So The Different Sects Of The Old Philosophers, Academians, Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, &c., Were Called Heresies.

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.

The First Author Of Speech Was God Himself, That Instructed Adam How To Name Such Creatures As He Presented To His Sight.

If God Bestowed Immortality On Every Man Then When He Made Him, And He Made Many To Whom He Never Purposed To Give His Saving Grace, What Did His Lordship Think That God Gave Any Man Immortality With Purpose Only To Make Him Capable Of Immortal Torments? It Is A Hard Saying, And I Think Cannot Piously Be Believed. I Am Sure It Can Never Be Proved By The Canonical Scripture.

Immortality Is A Belief Grounded Upon Other Men's Sayings, That They Knew It Supernaturally; Or That They Knew Those Who Knew Them That Knew Others That Knew It Supernaturally.

Prudence Is But Experience, Which Equal Time Equally Bestows On All Men In Those Things They Equally Apply Themselves Unto.

For Naturall Bloud Is In Like Manner Made Of The Fruits Of The Earth; And Circulating, Nourisheth By The Way, Every Member Of The Body Of Man.

I Shall Be Glad Then To Find A Hole To Creep Out Of The World.

Appetite, With An Opinion Of Attaining, Is Called Hope; The Same, Without Such Opinion, Despair.

Scientia Potentia Est, Sed Parva; Quia Scientia Egregia Rara Est, Nec Proinde Apparens Nisi Paucissimis, Et In Paucis Rebus. Scientiae Enim Ea Natura Est, Ut Esse Intelligi Non Possit, Nisi Ab Illis Qui Sunt Scientia Praediti.

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.

Men Looke Not At The Greatnesse Of The Evill Past, But The Greatnesse Of The Good To Follow.

All Generous Minds Have A Horror Of What Are Commonly Called 'facts'. They Are The Brute Beasts Of The Intellectual Domain.

No Discourse Whatsoever, Can End In Absolute Knowledge Of Fact.

Reason Is The Soul Of The Law.

From Whence It Happens, That They Which Trust To Books, Do As They That Cast Up Many Little Sums Into A Greater, Without Considering Whether Those Little Sums Were Rightly Cast Up Or Not; And At Last Finding The Error Visible, And Not Mistrusting Their First Grounds, Know Not Which Way To Clear Themselves; But Spend Time In Fluttering Over Their Books, As Birds That Entering By The Chimney, And Finding Themselves Enclosed In A Chamber, Flutter At The False Light Of A Glass Window, For Want Of Wit To Consider Which Way They Came In.

To Say God Spake Or Appeared As He Is In His Own Nature, Is To Deny His Infiniteness, Invisibility, Incomprehensibility.

What Reason Is There That He Which Laboreth Much, And, Sparing The Fruits Of His Labor, Consumeth Little, Should Be More Charged Than He That, Living Idly, Getteth Little And Spendeth All He Gets, Seeing The One Hath No More Protection From The Commonwealth Than The Other?

For It Can Never Be That War Shall Preserve Life, And Peace Destroy It.

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.

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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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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