 A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him. |
| Words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools. |
| 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 secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame. |
| Words are the money of fools. |
| I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. |
| It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law. |
| Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation. |
| A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life. |
| 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. |
| Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech. |
| 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. |
| Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another. |
| The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. |
| Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it. |
| All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called "Facts". They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. |
| 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. |
