Man is distinguished not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion, from all other animals.

The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

When two, or more men, know of one and the same fact, they are said to be CONSCIOUS of it one to another; which is as much as to know it together.

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

Prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto.

To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad.

The original of all great and lasting societies consisted not in the mutual good will men had toward each other, but in the mutual fear they had of each other.

Let a man (as most men do) rate themselves as the highest Value they can; yet their true Value is no more than it is esteemed by others.

That wee have of Geometry, which is the mother of all Naturall Science, wee are not indebted for it to the Schools.

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

Silence is sometimes an argument of Consent.

Words are the money of fools.

Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair.

Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past.

A private man has always the liberty (because thought is free) to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefits can accrue by men's belief, to those that pretend, or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies.

Competition of praise inclineth to a reverence of antiquity. For men contend with the living, not with the dead.

A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press.

I mean by the universe, the aggregate of all things that have being in themselves; and so do all men else. And because God has a being, it follows that he is either the whole universe, or part of it. Nor does his Lordship go about to disprove it, but only seems to wonder at it.

Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.

Ambition, and Covetousnesse are Passions that are perpetually incumbent, and pressing.