Thomas Hobbes Quotes on Politics
Hobbes's Leviathan derives political authority from the predicament of the state of nature: a war of all against all in which life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, because each rational individual has reason to strike preemptively against potential rivals. Rational agents in such conditions consent to transfer their natural right of self-defense to a sovereign whose monopoly on coercion alone can secure peace. The argument grounds modern absolutism not in divine right but in social contract — and shapes every subsequent contractarian theory through Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Rawls.
Quotes
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Attributed to Thomas Hobbes:
“And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
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“The war of all against all.”
The First Part, Chapter 13, p. 62 -
“Covenants without the sword are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.”
The Second Part, Chapter 17, p. 85 -
“The condition of man is a condition of war of every one against every one.”
The First Part, Chapter 14, p. 64 -
“He that is to govern a whole nation must read in himself, not this or that particular man, but mankind.”
The Introduction, p. 2 -
“Such truth as opposes no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.”
Review and Conclusion, p. 396, (Last text line) -
“In the state of nature, Profit is the measure of Right.”
...in statu naturae Mensuram juris esse Utilitatem. -
“De Cive "Of the right of him, whether Counsell, or one Man onely, who hath the supreme power in the City" (1642) Ch. 6”
For he that hath strength enough to protect all, wants not sufficiency to oppresse all.