Leviathan Quotes

• He believed in it, as certain good women believe in the leviathan-by faith, not by reason.

  Jules Verne

  Believe, Sea, Good Woman

  Jules Verne, Jules VERNE (2016). “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea / Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Bilingual Edition: English - French / Édition bilingue: anglais - français)”, p.12, Jules Verne

  59 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Book of Job is advice on how to live in terms of the absolute power of nature. Leviathan is advice on how to live in terms of the absolute power of the state.

  Donald Phillip Verene

  Jobs, Book, Advice

  Donald Phillip Verene (2013). “Moral Philosophy and the Modern World”, p.134, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  58 Copy quote

  Show source

• An individualism which has got beyond the stage of hedonism tends to yield to the lure of the grandiose. It was not man, the individual, nor even the Supreme Being, that Robespierre set up against Christ; it was that Leviathan, the Nation.

  Andre Malraux

  Men, Yield, Individualism

  "The Voices of Silence". Book by Andre Malraux, Doubleday, Part IV, Chapter I, 1953.

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Fear, War, Men

  Leviathan pt. 1, ch. 13 (1651)

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Art, War, Men

  'Leviathan' (1651) pt. 1, ch. 13

  115 Copy quote

  Show source

• Where there is no common power, there is no law

  Thomas Hobbes

  Law, Common

  Thomas Hobbes (2015). “Leviathan”, p.145, eKitap Projesi

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the belly of Leviathan ... one can either despair and perish, or be cheerful and persevere.

  Dean Koontz

  Despair, Cheerful, Persevere

  Dean Koontz (2016). “The Complete Odd Thomas 8-Book Bundle: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, Odd Hours, Odd Apocalypse, Odd Interlude, Deeply Odd, Saint Odd”, p.234, Bantam

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Life, Nature, Men

  Thomas Hobbes (2005). “Leviathan, Parts I and II”, p.98, Broadview Press

  174 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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, Restless

  Leviathan pt. 1, ch. 11 (1651)

  23 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Hell is Truth Seen Too Late.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Truth, Philosophy, Too Late

  Quoted by Johnson, Enemies of Society (1977). Johnson's corollary is "Survival is falsehood detected in time."

  195 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Power, Long, Able

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil”, p.171, Simon and Schuster

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Men, Two, Enemy

  Thomas Hobbes (2016). “Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan (Longman Library of Primary Sources in Philosophy)”, p.82, Routledge

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Fear, Mind, Desire

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan”, p.55, Simon and Schuster

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  War, Men, Law

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan”, p.101, Simon and Schuster

  112 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Men, Differences, Mind

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan”, p.98, Simon and Schuster

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Peace, Men, Thinking

  Thomas Hobbes (2005). “Leviathan, Parts I and II”, p.99, Broadview Press

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  War, Fighting, Battle

  12 Copy quote

• Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

  Thomas Hobbes

  War, Two, Hype

  Leviathan pt. 1, ch. 13 (1651)

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Philosophical, Dark, Journey

  Last words, in John Watkins 'Anecdotes of Men of Learning' (1808

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• A colleague once described political theorists as people who were obsessed with two dozen books; after half a century of grappling with Mill's essay On Liberty, or Hobbes's Leviathan, I have sometimes thought two dozen might be a little on the high side.

  Alan Ryan

  Book, Two, People

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Ignorance, Passion, Errors

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan”, p.217, Simon and Schuster

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we look at the black record of mass murder, exploitation, and tyranny levied on society by governments over the ages, we need not be loath to abandon the Leviathan State and . . . try freedom.

  Murray Rothbard

  Government, Black, Trying

  Murray Newton Rothbard (1978). “For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto”, p.290, Ludwig von Mises Institute

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Men, Judging, May

  Thomas Hobbes (2015). “Leviathan: Top 100 Classic Novels”, p.210, 谷月社

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Summation of Leviathan: "The axiom, fear; the method, logic; the conclusion, despotism."

  Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper

  History, Logic, Despotism

  11 Copy quote