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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.

-Thomas Hobbes

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For Such Is The

Thomas Hobbes

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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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Reason Is The Soul Of The Law.

Moral Philosophy Is Nothing Else But The Science Of What Is Good, And Evil, In The Conversation, And Society Of Mankind. Good, And Evil, Are Names That Signify Our Appetites, And Aversions; Which In Different Tempers, Customs, And Doctrines Of Men, Are Different.

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

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

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

The First Cause Of Absurd Conclusions I Ascribe To The Want Of Method.

Whatsoever Accidents Or Qualities Our Senses Make Us Think There Be In The World, They Are Not There, But Are Seemings And Apparitions Only. The Things That Really Are In The World Without Us, Are Those Motions By Which These Seemings Are Caused. And This Is The Great Deception Of Sense, Which Also Is By Sense To Be Corrected. For As Sense Telleth Me, When I See Directly, That The Colour Seemeth To Be In The Object; So Also Sense Telleth Me, When I See By Reflection, That Colour Is Not In The Object.

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

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

It Is Not Wisdom But Authority That Makes A Law

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.

No Mans Error Becomes His Own Law; Nor Obliges Him To Persist In It.

Hell Is Truth Seen Too Late.

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.

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.

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

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 Best Men Are The Least Suspicious Of Fraudulent Purposes.

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

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.

And Therefore In Geometry (which Is The Only Science That It Hath Pleased God Hitherto To Bestow On Mankind), Men Begin At Settling The Significations Of Their Words; Which Settling Of Significations, They Call Definitions, And Place Them In The Beginning Of Their Reckoning.

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.

So That In The Nature Of Man, We Find Three Principal Causes Of Quarrel. First, Competition; Secondly, Diffidence; Thirdly, Glory. The First Maketh Men Invade For Gain; The Second, For Safety; And The Third, For Reputation. The First Use Violence, To Make Themselves Masters Of Other Men's Persons, Wives, Children, And Cattle; The Second, To Defend Them; The Third, For Trifles, As A Word, A Smile, A Different Opinion, And Any Other Sign Of Undervalue, Either Direct In Their Persons Or By Reflection In Their Kindred, Their Friends, Their Nation, Their Profession, Or Their Name.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 .

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.

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 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.

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.

Competition Of Praise Inclineth To A Reverence Of Antiquity. For Men Contend With The Living, Not With The Dead.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Another Doctrine Repugnant To Civill Society, Is That Whatsoever A Man Does Against His Conscience, Is Sinne ; And It Dependeth On The Presumption Of Making Himself Judge Of Good And Evill. For A Man's Conscience And His Judgement Are The Same Thing, And As The Judgement, So Also The Conscience May Be Erroneous.

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

The Original Of All Great And Lasting Societies Consisted Not In The Mutual Good Will Men Had Toward Each Other, But In The Mutual Fear They Had Of Each Other.

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.

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.

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.

Curiosity Is The Lust Of The Mind.

Words Are The Counters Of Wise Men, But The Money Of Fools.

Leisure Can Be One Of The Mothers Of Philosophy.

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?

Geometry Is The Only Science That It Hath Pleased God Hitherto To Bestow On Mankind.

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.

It Is Many Times With A Fraudulent Design That Men Stick Their Corrupt Doctrine With The Cloves Of Other Mens Wit.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Passions Unguided Are For The Most Part Mere Madness.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

For If I Should Not Believe All That Is Written By Historians, Of The Glorious Acts Of Alexander, Or Caesar; I Do Not Think The Ghost Of Alexander, Or Caesar, Had Any Just Cause To Be Offended; Or Any Body Else, But The Historian. If Livy Say The Gods Made Once A Cow Speak, And We Believe It Not; We Distrust Not God Therein, But Livy. So That It Is Evident, That Whatsoever We Believe, Upon No Other Reason, Then What Is Drawn From Authority Of Men Only, And Their Writings; Whether They Be Sent From God Or Not, Is Faith In Men Only.

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 Reputation Of Power Is Power.

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.

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.

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.

To Be Seduced By Orators, As A Monarch By Flatterers.

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?

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

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.

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.

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

Nature (the Art Whereby God Hath Made And Governs The World) Is By The Art Of Man, As In Many Other Things, So In This Also Imitated, That It Can Make An Artificial Animal. For Seeing Life Is But A Motion Of Limbs, The Beginning Whereof Is In Some Principal Part Within; Why May We Not Say, That All Automata (engines That Move Themselves By Springs And Wheels As Doth A Watch) Have An Artificial Life?

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

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?

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

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

Love Is A Person's Idea About His/her Needs In Other Person What You Are Attracted To.

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.

The Law Is The Public Conscience.

Corporations Are "worms In The Body Politic"

Ignorance Of The Law Is No Good Excuse, Where Every Man Is Bound To Take Notice Of The Laws To Which He Is Subject.

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

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.

Time, And Industry, Produce Everyday New Knowledge.

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.

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.

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.

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

Man Is Distinguished Not Only By His Reason, But Also By This Singular Passion, From All Other Animals.

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.

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.

[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.

Fact Be Vertuous, Or Vicious, As Fortune Pleaseth

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Of All Discourse , Governed By Desire Of Knowledge, There Is At Last An End , Either By Attaining, Or By Giving Over.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

The Register Of Knowledge Of Fact Is Called History .

Understanding Is Nothing Else Than Conception Caused By Speech.

Unnecessary Laws Are Not Good Laws, But Traps For Money.

Nature Itself Cannot Err

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.

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.

In A Democracy, Look How Many Demagogs That Is How Many Powerful Orators There Are With The People.

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

For To Accuse Requires Less Eloquence, Such Is Man's Nature, Than To Excuse; And Condemnation, Than Absolution, More Resembles Justice.

No Arts, No Letters - No Society.

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

When The Nature Of The Thing Is Incomprehensible, I Can Acquiesce In The Scripture: But When The Signification Of Words Is Incomprehensible, I Cannot Acquiesce In The Authority Of A Schoolman.

The Characters Of Man's Heart, Blotted And Confounded As They Are With Dissembling, Lying, Counterfeiting, And Erroneous Doctrines, Are Legible Only To Him That Searcheth Hearts.

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.

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

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.

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

So That Every Crime Is A Sinne; But Not Every Sinne A Crime.

And Therefore, As When There Is A Controversy In An Account, The Parties Must By Their Own Accord, Set Up For Right Reason, The Reason Of Some Arbitrator, Or Judge, To Whose Sentence, They Will Both Stand, Or Their Controversy Must Either Come To Blows, Or Be Undecided, For Want Of A Right Reason Constituted By Nature; So Is It Also In All Debates Of What Kind Soever.

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

Leisure Is The Mother Of Philosophy.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

By How Much One Man Has More Experience Of Things Past, Than Another, By So Much Also He Is More Prudent, And His Expectations The Seldomer Fail Him.

Where There Is No Common Power, There Is No Law

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

To Conclude, The Light Of Humane Minds Is Perspicuous Words, But By Exact Definitions First Snuffed, And Purged From Ambiguity; Reason Is The Pace; Encrease Of Science, The Way; And The Benefit Of Man-kind, The End.

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.

Silence Is Sometimes An Argument Of Consent.

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.

To Understand This For Sense It Is Not Required That A Man Should Be A Geometrician Or A Logician, But That He Should Be Mad.

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.

Force And Fraud Are In War The Two Cardinal Virtues.

I Think, Therefore Matter Is Capable Of Thinking.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Desire Of Praise Disposeth To Laudable Actions.

Such Truth, As Opposeth No Man's Profit, Nor Pleasure, Is To All Men Welcome.

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

Do Not That To Another, Which Thou Wouldst Not Have Done To Thyself.

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 Soon As A Thought Darts, I Write It Down.

There Is No Such Thing As Perpetual Tranquility Of Mind While We Live Here.

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.

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Hans-Georg Gadamer

Emile M. Cioran

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