“If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.”

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal.

I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdity of my waking thoughts.

Leisure is the mother of Philosophy.

If men are naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors?

In the very shadows of doubt a thread of reason (so to speak) begins, by whose guidance we shall escape to the clearest light.

The light of humane minds is perspicuous words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity, reason is the pace.

The Power of a Man is his present means, to obtain some future apparent Good.

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

As a draft-animal is yoked in a wagon, even so the spirit is yoked in this body.

Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which every one in himself calleth religion.

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

Power simply is no more, but the excess of the power of one above that of another.

For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it.

A great leap in the dark.

For such is the nature of man, 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.

For to accuse requires less eloquence, such is man’s nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice.

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.

I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.

A novel must show how the world truly is. Somehow, reveals the true source of our actions.

There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.

One day’s exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books.

One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.

All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen.