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

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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)

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• 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

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• 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

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

  Thomas Hobbes

  Law, Common

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

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• 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

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• 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)

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• 

  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."

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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

  Thomas Hobbes

  War, Two, Hype

  Leviathan pt. 1, ch. 13 (1651)

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• Listening (had there been any one to listen) from the upper rooms of the empty house only gigantic chaos streaked with lightning could have been heard tumbling and tossing, as the winds and waves disported themselves like the amorphous bulks of leviathans whose brows are pierced by no light of reason, and mounted one on top of another, and lunged and plunged in the darkness or the daylight (for night and day, month and year ran shapelessly together) in idiot games, until it seemed as if the universe were battling and tumbling, in brute confusion and wanton lust aimlessly by itself.

  Virginia Woolf

  Night, Light, Years

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.343, Wordsworth Editions

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• Our federal government, which was intended to operate as a very limited constitutional republic, has instead become a virtually socialist leviathan that redistributes trillions of dollars. We can hardly be surprised when countless special interests fight for the money. The only true solution to the campaign money problem is a return to a proper constitutional government that does not control the economy. Big government and big campaign money go hand-in-hand.

  Ron Paul

  Fighting, Government, Hands

  "Why Is There So Much Money in Politics?" by Ron Paul, February 4, 2002.

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

  Thomas Hobbes

  Opinion, Orthodox, Heresy

  'Leviathan' (1651) pt. 1, ch. 11

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• 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.

  Thomas Hobbes

  War, Fighting, Battle

  Thomas Hobbes (2010). “Leviathan - Revised Edition”, p.125, Broadview Press

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