The 70 best famous phrases of Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679) was a prominent English philosopher who greatly influenced political philosophy in modern times. Author of Leviathan (1651), in his works he explored the ethical levels that governed free market societies.

A liberal theorist, Hobbes left an extensive legacy in disciplines as disparate as political science, history, ethics, physics, and geometry.

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Phrases of Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher

In his texts he spoke to us about the importance of the liberal state and the limits of representative democracy.

In today's article we will do an exhaustive review with the best phrases of Thomas Hobbes, to make his philosophical and political thought more accessible.

1. Desire, accompanied by the idea of ​​being satisfied, is called hope; stripped of such an idea, despair.

Reflection on life expectations.

2. Laughter is nothing more than the glory that is born of our superiority.

A small sample of moral and intellectual superiority.

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3. The first and fundamental law of nature is to seek peace.

Without that harmony there is nothing more that can be built.

4. Eloquence is power, because it has the aspect of prudence.

Speaking well means weighing the tone and content of what is going to be said.

5. Fear and I were born twins.

with similar characteristics.

6. When men build on false foundations, the more they build, the greater the ruin.

The fundamentals of large companies, the more solid, the better.

7. Man is a wolf to man.

homo homini lupus, perhaps Thomas Hobbes's most famous phrase.

8. Life is a perpetual movement that, if it cannot progress in a straight line, unfolds in a circular way.

In continuous dynamic process.

9. That private norm to define the good is not only a vain doctrine, but it is also pernicious for the public State.

An ethical reflection.

10. Idleness is the mother of philosophy.

Once we have nothing to do we can reflect on everything and nothing.

11. The basis of all great and lasting societies has consisted, not in the mutual will that men had for each other, but in their mutual fear.

Respect for authority is, historically, the glue with which societies can survive.

12. After such barbarity what can be said?

An ironic response to one of his peers.

13. Ideas stimulate the mind.

Creativity comes from there.

14. Favors oblige, and the obligation is a slavery.

When you receive a favor from someone, be suspicious.

15. When two men want the same thing that they cannot enjoy together, they become enemies.

This is how competition works.

16. The Messiah was both, many sacrificial goats and many escaped goats.

About Jesus Christ and his life.

17. War is not just about battle but about the will to fight.

What lies behind armed conflicts.

18. Julius Caesar and other emperors who came after him obtained that same testimony, that is, they were canonized as saints.

From high politics to religious veneration.

19. There are very few who are so foolish that they do not prefer to govern themselves rather than be governed by others.

Having your own criteria is always preferable.

20. The inequality that now exists has been introduced by civil laws.

In the view of several phrases of Thomas Hobbes, the law is the genesis of inequality.

21. Equal justice also corresponds to an equal application of taxes...

The rich cannot pay less, or the social contract is undermined.

22. We do not seek society for its own sake, but for the honors or benefits it can bring us.

Society helps us achieve our desires.

23. A democracy is really nothing more than an aristocracy of orators, interrupted sometimes by the temporary monarchy of an orator.

The voice of the people is rarely represented.

24. Notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no place in war.

They are ethical variables that do not apply to armed conflicts.

25. In the nature of man we find three main causes of quarrel: competition, distrust and glory.

To reflect.

26. Sometimes a man wishes to know the result of an action, and then he thinks of a similar action and the successive results to which it gave rise, on the assumption that similar actions will be followed by results similar.

One of those Thomas Hobbes phrases in which he discusses human motivations.

27. A free man is one who, having strength and talent to do one thing, finds no obstacles to his will.

It focuses directly on the target.

28. The pagans also had their Saturnalia, and we have carnivals.

A form of collective redemption.

29. Those who approve of an opinion call it an opinion; but those who disapprove of it call it heresy.

It all depends on the point of view, according to Hobbes.

30. But the one to whom, under the promise of obedience, life and freedom, will then be conquered and will become a subject.

For example, with the religious or ideological yoke.

31. The submission of the subjects to their sovereign is understood to last as long and no longer, when the power to protect them lasts.

A single requirement to be a subject.

32. The impostors do not need to study natural causes much, but it is enough for them to make use of the common ignorance, stupidity and superstition of humanity.

The modus operandi of those who do not go face.

33. From the equality of abilities arises the equality of hopes in the achievement of our ends.

A moral maxim that is the premise of meritocracy.

34. I am about to embark on my last journey; I'm going to take the big leap in the dark.

About death.

35. Christ has not left his ministers of this world, unless they are also endowed with civil authority, any authority to command other men.

Authority is hardly understandable.

36. The leisures of rest are the fathers of Philosophy.

Another phrase from Hobbes in reference to the importance of leisure in the development of our thinking.

37. The fear of an invisible power, feigned by the mind or imagined from stories that have been accepted by the public, we call religion; if they have not been accepted, superstition.

Relevant reflection about beliefs.

38. How can a man who has not had a supernatural revelation be sure that the one who declares that law has done so by revelation? And how can he be bound to obey those laws?

Thought about the genesis of laws.

39. When a man, because of his natural roughness, pretends to retain what, being superfluous for him, is necessary for others, and, due to the stubbornness of his passions, he cannot correct himself, he will have to be expelled from society for being a danger to she.

He deserves prison, according to Hobbes.

40. When a man reasons, he does nothing but conceive a total sum by addition of parts, or conceive a remainder by subtraction.

About our way of thinking.

41. From this it follows that from absurd and false statements - if they were universal - there can be no understanding, Although many think they understand them, when in reality they just repeat words in a low voice or learn them by themselves. memory.

A logical reasoning about human understanding.

42. Among the diseases of a State, I will therefore consider, first of all, those that arise from a imperfect institution and that resemble the diseases of a natural body that come from a procreation defective.

Looking for metaphors between the health of a State and physical health.

43. So a person is the same as an actor, both on the stage and in ordinary conversation.

We all act in the way that suits us best.

44. The fear of invisible things is the natural seed of what each one calls for himself religion.

A curious conception about religions.

45. The Papacy is nothing more than the ghost of the already deceased Roman Empire.

A negative assessment of the Vatican.

46. The power of the Pope, even if it were Saint Peter, is not a monarchy, nor is it archic or critical, but only didactic.

Another phrase about the influence of the Pope.

47. The present exists only in nature; past things have their being only in memory; but the things that are to come have no existence, since the future is nothing but a fiction that the mind manufactures by attributing to present actions the consequences that followed from past actions.

ontological description.

48. Those men who base their knowledge on the authority of books, and not on their own meditation, are of lower status than the simple ignorant.

Knowledge is useless without real experience.

49. It is manifest, therefore, that men do not know, but only believe that the Scripture is the word of God.

A critique of religious faith.

50. It is a duty of the sovereign to ensure that the people are instructed accordingly; and it is not only his duty, but also his benefit, and the way of insuring himself against the danger that may befall his natural person from rebellion.

Education as a fundamental pillar of the reproduction of state structures.

51. The appearance of property is an effect of the institution of the State.

As such, the State has the mission of safeguarding this right.

52. Good appearance is power, because, being a promise of good, it procures men the favor of women and strangers.

Reflection on the good image.

53. The canonization of saints is another religion of gentilism.

One of those dandy Christian rituals.

54. The darkest part of the Kingdom of Satan is the one outside the Churches of God, that is, among those who do not believe in Jesus Christ.

To reflect on faith.

55. The sciences bring with them little power, because they are not very visible and cannot be recognized in any man.

Interesting reflection on the social weight of science.

56. Competition for wealth, honors, leadership, or any other power leads to antagonism, enmity, and war. Because the way a competitor achieves his wishes is by killing, subduing, supplanting or rejecting those who compete with him.

Liberalism carries with it a series of vices.

57. The truth is that the praise of ancient writers does not come from respect for the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy that takes place among the living.

It is not possible to congratulate in life, the result of the absurd competition between writers.

58. What gives human actions a flavor of justice is that nobility or gallantry of spirit, which occurs very rarely, which causes a man to despise the advantages that he might obtain in his life as a result of fraud or breach of an promise.

Ethics as the culmination of moral joy.

59. The ecclesiastics prevent young people from making use of their reason.

They do not let their critical capacity flow.

60. The Christian States punish those who rebel against the Christian religion; and all States punish those who try to establish a religion that is prohibited by them.

On the doctrinal will of all States.

61. The Greeks have only one and the same word, logos, to mean language and reason.

There is a reason why people speak with the same voice.

62. Influential individuals always have difficulty digesting doctrines that establish a power capable of curbing their whims.

They always ambition more and more.

63. Those who are in charge of the government take care not to indirectly approve what they directly prohibit.

Done the law done the snare.

64. Men do not find pleasure, but great suffering, living with others where there is no power capable of frightening them all.

According to Hobbes, man needs clear rules to live in peace.

65. But it is not the author, but the authority of the Church, that makes a book a canonical text.

Authority emanates from power, not from the unique and mystical vision of the author.

66. Be conciliatory with your adversary as long as you share the road with him, lest he hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the bailiff, and you be put in prison.

A great teaching so as not to get absurdly trapped.

67. No man can know infallibly, by natural reason, whether another has had a supernatural revelation of the will of God; he will have only one belief.

Reflection on the mystical life.

68. No injustice can become a standard of judgment by which subsequent judges are guided.

Jurisprudence must be limited to manifestly just cases.

69. There is no man who can have a thought or representation of something that is not subject to the order of the sensory.

Only perception gives us instruments for our imagination.

70. Originally, tyrant simply meant monarch.

For some reason the meaning was mutating.