Date: 1651, 1668

"Potent men, digest hardly any thing that setteth up a power to bridle their affections; and learned men, any thing that discovereth their errors, and thereby lesseneth their authority: whereas the common people's minds, unless they be tainted with dependance on the potent, or scribbled over with...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"In sum, the discourse of the mind, when it is governed by design, is nothing but seeking, or the faculty of invention, which the Latins called sagacitas, and solertia; a hunting out of the causes, of some effect, present or past; or of the effects, of some present or past ca...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"Again, from thence, his thoughts run over the same places and times, to find what action, or other occasion might make him lose it."

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"Afterwards, men made use of the same word [conscience] metaphorically for the knowledge of their own secret facts and secret thoughts; and therefore it is rhetorically said that the conscience is a thousand witnesses."

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"For the thoughts are to the desires, as scouts, and spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things desired."

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"All fancies are motions within us, relics of those made in the sense: and those motions that immediately succeeded one another in the sense, continue also together after sense: insomuch as the former coming again to take place, and be predominant, the latter followeth, by coherence of the matter...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"Sometimes a man knows a place determinate, within the compass whereof he is to seek; and then his thoughts run over all the parts thereof, in the same manner as one would sweep a room, to find a jewel; or as a spaniel ranges the field, till he find a scent; or as a man should run over the alphab...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"The Latins called accounts of money rationes, and accounting ratiocinatio; and that which we in bills or books of account call items, they call nomina, that is names; and thence it seems to proceed, that they extended the word ratio to the faculty of reckoning in all other things."

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"To conclude, the light of human minds is perspicuous words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity; reason is the pace; increase of science, the way; and the benefit of mankind, the end."

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"And on the contrary, metaphors, and senseless and ambiguous words, are like ignes fatui; and reasoning upon them is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities; and their end, contention and sedition, or contempt."

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)