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

A theorist of liberalism, Hobbes left an extensive legacy in disciplines as diverse as political science, history, ethics, physics and geometry.

Phrases of Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher

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

In today’s article we will make 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 satisfaction, is called hope; stripped of such an idea, despair.

Reflection on life expectations.

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

A small display 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 else to build.

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

Speaking well means weighing the tone and content of what is 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 big business, the more solid, the better.

7. Man is a wolf to man.

Homo homini lupus , perhaps Thomas Hobbes’ most famous phrase.

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

In continuous dynamic process.

9. This private rule to define the good is not only vain doctrine, but also harmful to 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 the mutual fear.

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

12. After such an outrage, what can you say?

An ironic response to one of his contertuli.

13. Ideas stimulate the mind.

Creativity is born from there.

14. Favors oblige, and obligation is slavery.

When you get a favor from someone, be suspicious.

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

That’s how the competition works.

16. The Messiah was both, a lot of sacrificial goat and a lot of escape goat.

About Jesus Christ and his life.

17. War does not consist only of battle, but of the will to fight.

What’s behind the 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 would not rather govern themselves than be governed by others.

Having one’s own criteria is always preferable.

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

According to several sentences by Thomas Hobbes, the law is the genesis of inequality.

21. Equal justice also means 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 to achieve our desires.

23. A democracy is in reality nothing more than an aristocracy of speakers, sometimes interrupted by the temporary monarchy of a speaker.

The voice of the people is rarely represented.

24. The notions of righteousness and unlawfulness, justice and injustice, have no place in war.

These are ethical variables that do not apply to war.

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

For reflection.

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

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

27. A free man is one who, having the strength and talent to do a thing, finds no obstacle 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 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 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 sovereign has the power to protect them.

A single requirement to be a subject.

32. 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 mankind.

The M.O. of the non-facetious.

33. From equality of skills comes equality of hope in achieving our ends.

A moral maxim that is a premise of meritocracy.

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

About death.

35. Christ has not left His ministers of this world, unless they are also endowed with civil authority, no authority to command other men.

Authority is hard to understand.

36. The leisure of rest is the father of philosophy.

Another sentence by 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 it religion; if it has not been accepted, superstition.

Relevant reflection on 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 obliged to obey these laws?

Thinking about the genesis of laws.

39. When a man, because of his natural harshness, seeks to retain what, being superfluous to himself, is necessary to others, and, because of the stubbornness of his passions, cannot be corrected, he must be expelled from society because he constitutes a danger to it.

He deserves prison, according to Hobbes.

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

About our way of thinking.

41. It follows that from absurd and false statements – if they were universal – there can be no understanding, even if many think they understand them, when in reality they merely repeat words in a low voice or learn them by heart.

A logical reasoning on human understanding.

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

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

43. So a person is the same as an actor, both on 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 late Roman Empire.

A negative assessment of the Vatican.

46. The power of the Pope, even if it were St. Peter’s, is neither a monarchy nor has anything arcane or critical, but only didactic.

Another sentence about the Pope’s influence.

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 whatsoever, since the future is nothing but a fiction which the mind fabricates 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 a lower condition than simple ignoramuses.

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 criticism of religious faith.

50. It is the duty of the sovereign to see that the people are properly instructed; and it is not only his duty, but also his benefit, and the way to insure himself against the danger that may come to his natural person from rebellion.

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

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

As such, the State has the mission to safeguard this right.

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

Reflection on the good image.

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

One of those rather caspian Christian rituals.

54. The darkest part of the Kingdom of Satan is the one outside the Church 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, honour, command or any other power leads to antagonism, enmity and war. For the way a competitor achieves his desires is by killing, subduing, supplanting or rejecting the one who competes with him.

Liberalism carries with it a number of vices.

57. The truth is that the praise of ancient writers does not come from a 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, fruit of the absurd competition between writers.

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

Ethics as the height of moral joy.

59. Churchmen prevent young people from using their reason.

They don’t let their critical ability flow.

60. Christian States punish those who rebel against the Christian religion; and all States punish those who try to establish a religion that is forbidden 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’s a reason you speak with the same voice.

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

They always want more and more.

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

Law made, trap made.

64. Men do not find pleasure, but rather great suffering, in 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 author’s unique and mystical vision.

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

A great lesson so that we don’t get caught up in absurdity.

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

Reflection on the mystical life.

68. No injustice can become a rule of judgment for subsequent judges to follow.

Case law must be limited to clearly fair cases.

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

Only perception gives us tools for our imagination.

70. Originally, tyrant meant simply monarch.

For some reason the meaning was mutated.