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

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 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.

Philosophy excludes the doctrine of angels, and all such things as are thought to be neither bodies nor properties of bodies.

Covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.

It is not wisdom but authority that makes a Law.

Hell is truth seen too late.

All acquired power consists in command over some of the powers of other man.

Animals don’t lie. Animals don’t criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.

If you take the the insults of your fellow human beings personally, you will be offended for the rest of your life.

Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.

Not only, in strict truth, was marriage instituted for the propagation of the human race, but also that the lives of husbands and wives might be made better and happier.

Occasionally, the sun is eclipsed by the body of a weeping human. Her tears make the soil harden and crust like the top of a burnt load of bread.

Betting against gold is the same as betting on governments. He who bets on governments and government money bets against 6,000 years of recorded human history.

No human law can abolish the natural and original right of marriage, nor in any way limit the chief and principal purpose of marriage ordained by God’s authority from the beginning: “Increase and multiply.

It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with excessive labour as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies.