Thomas Hobbes: Trending quotes (page 2)

“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.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The First Part, Chapter 11, p. 47.
Leviathan (1651)
Context: 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. The cause whereof is that the object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time, but to assure forever the way of his future desire. And therefore the voluntary actions and inclinations of all men tend not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life, and differ only in the way, which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions in diverse men, and partly from the difference of the knowledge or opinion each one has of the causes which produce the effect desired.

Way

“The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method;”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The First Part, Chapter 5, p. 20 (See also: Algorithms).
Leviathan (1651)
Context: The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method; in that they begin not their Ratiocination from Definitions; that is, from settled significations of their words: as if they could cast account, without knowing the value of the numerall words, one, two, and three.

“And Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Second Part, Chapter 17, p. 85.
Leviathan (1651)
Context: For the Lawes of Nature (as Justice, Equity, Modesty, Mercy, and (in summe)doing to others, as wee would be done to,) of themselves, without the terrour of some Power, to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our naturall Passions, that carry us to Partiality, Pride, Revenge, and the like. And Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.

“Knowledge is power.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

This is the sentence that dug the grave of philosophy in the nineteenth century. … This sentence brings to an end the tradition of a knowledge that, as its name indicates, was an erotic theory—the love of truth and the truth through love (Liebeswahrheit). … Those who utter the sentence reveal the truth. However, with the utterance they want to achieve more than truth: They want to intervene in the game of power.
Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. xxvii
Source: Leviathan

Knowledge

“The condition of man… is a condition of war of everyone against everyone”

Thomas Hobbes

War

“Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.”

Thomas Hobbes

War , Fraud

“The passion of laughter is nothing else but a sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmities of others, or with our own formerly…”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic Pt. I Human Nature (1640) Ch. 9
Source: Leviathan

Laughter , Passion

“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.”