Thomas Hobbes Quotes About Mankind

Quotes about: Mankind

• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Philosophy, Men, Names

  Thomas Hobbes (2016). “The Essential Leviathan: A Modernized Edition”, p.87, Hackett Publishing

• Geometry is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind.

  Thomas Hobbes

  God, Mathematical, Mankind

  'Leviathan' (1651) pt. 1, ch. 4

• I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Authority And Power, Desire, Leviathan

  Leviathan pt. 1, ch. 11 (1651)

• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Science, Men, Definitions

  Thomas Hobbes (1750). “The Moral and Political Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury: Never Before Collected Together : To which is Prefixed, the Author's Life, Extracted from that Said to be Written by Himself, ...”, p.109

• 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

  Men, Law, Justice

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil”, p.130, Simon and Schuster

• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Pain, Reading, Men

  Thomas Hobbes (2010). “Leviathan - Revised Edition”, p.39, Broadview Press

• 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

  Mean, Men, Desire

  Leviathan pt. 1, ch. 11 (1651)

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