Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.
Scientia potentia est, sed parva; quia scientia egregia rara est, nec proinde apparens nisi paucissimis, et in paucis rebus. Scientiae enim ea natura est, ut esse intelligi non possit, nisi ab illis qui sunt scientia praediti.
Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair.
For all laws are general judgements, or sentences of the legislator; as also every particular judgement is a law to him whose case is judged.
Such truth, as opposeth no man’s profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.
The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.
Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.
What reason is there that he which laboreth much, and, sparing the fruits of his labor, consumeth little, should be more charged than he that, living idly, getteth little and spendeth all he gets, seeing the one hath no more protection from the commonwealth than the other?
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.
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.
Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter.
A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them that assault him by force, to take away his life.
I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.
Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
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.
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.
Desire to know why, and how curiosity, which is a lust of the mind, that a perseverance of delight in the continued and indefatigable generation of knowledge exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.
From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced.
The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History .
No man is bound by the words themselves, either to kill himselfe, or any other man.