Words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools

He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy.

Another doctrine repugnant to civil society, is that whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of good and evil. For a man’s conscience...

The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject but man only

Words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them: But they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other...

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.

Scientia potentia est.Knowledge is power.

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.

The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law

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

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

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

They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion

Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.

War consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.

Therefor I doubt not but, if it had been a thing contrary to any man’s right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, ‘that the three angles of a triangle should...

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.

The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.

A man’s conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.

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

Such truth, as opposeth no man’s profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.

Curiosity is the lust of the mind.

The power of a man, to take it universally, is his present means, to obtain some future apparent good; and is either original or instrumental.

Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves.

Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy.

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.

A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him.

The first and fundamental law of Nature, which is, to seek peace and follow it.

No man’s error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.

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

A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life.

I am about to take my last voyage. A great leap in the dark.

Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.

The universe, the whole mass of things that are, is corporeal, that is to say, body, and hath the dimensions of magnitude, length, breadth and depth. Every part of the universe is ‘body’ and that...

Desire to know why, and how — curiosity, which is a lust of the mind, that a perseverance of delight in the continued and indefatigable generation of knowledge — exceedeth the short vehemence of any...

In the state of nature profit is the measure of right.

As a draft-animal is yoked in a wagon, even so the spirit is yoked in this body.

Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.

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

For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it.

A man’s conscience and his judgement is the same thing; and as the judgement, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.

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.

Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.

Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation.

As if it were Injustice to sell dearer than we buy; or to give more to a man than he merits. The value of all things contracted for, is measured by the Appetite of the...

For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared not...

The disembodied spirit is immortal; there is nothing of it that can grow old or die. But the embodied spirit sees death on the horizon as soon as its day dawns.

Opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion to what men fear, and talking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seeds of religion

Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter.