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.

Thomas Hobbes

Categorized in : Men Justice Law

Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.

Thomas Hobbes

government social men

Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Thomas Hobbes

nasty liberty society

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.

Thomas Hobbes

democracy government people

Humans are driven by a perpetual and restless desire of power.

Thomas Hobbes

restless driven desire

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.

Thomas Hobbes

individual opinion law

The condition of man... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.

Thomas Hobbes

survival men war

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.

Thomas Hobbes

lasting fear men

Hell is Truth Seen Too Late.

Thomas Hobbes

truth too-late philosophy

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.

Thomas Hobbes

nature men life

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law

Thomas Hobbes

authority law justice

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.

Thomas Hobbes

law men war

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.

Thomas Hobbes

men war art

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.

Thomas Hobbes

reflection men children

Where there is no common power, there is no law

Thomas Hobbes

leviathan law common

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

Thomas Hobbes

causes men order

All men, among themselves, are by nature equal. The inequality we now discern hath its spring from the civil law.

Thomas Hobbes

law spring men

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.

Thomas Hobbes

desire men mean

For if all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized.

Thomas Hobbes

equality would-be men

Men measure not only other men, but all other things, by themselves.

Thomas Hobbes

men

Curiosity is the lust of the mind.

Thomas Hobbes

life-lesson philosophical lust