Thomas Hobbes Quotes

Man is insatiable for power; he is infantile in his desires and, always discontented with what he has, loves only what he has not. People complain of the despotism of princes; they ought to complain of the despotism of man.

Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

Ambition is one of the more ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable …

The lust of dominion burns with a flame so fierce as to overpower all other affections of the human breast.

The love of power is the demon of mankind.

Death and hell are never full, and neither are men's eyes.

A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

I suppose I was always very greedy. I was never happy with what we had, and I was always looking for new opportunities.

Perhaps as good a classification as any of the main types is that of the three lusts distinguished by traditional Christianity - the lust of knowledge, the lust of sensation, and the lust of power.

Our necessities never equal our wants.

If you really think that ambition, power, lust, desire are not as applicable in the media as in politics or on Wall Street or anywhere else, you're deluding yourself.

It's a rough and tumble game whenever power is involved - people's ambitions, their desires, their competitive spirit will often push them to play outside the rules. It's dramatic, it's interesting, and I think it's something we can all identify with to a degree.

There is always greed. There is nothing wrong with greed.

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature, and that power whether vested in many or few is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, 'Give, give.'

The more you have, the more you want L'appetit vient en mangeant

I think we're all greedy. Who do you know who says, 'I have enough! I don't need any more!'? It's part of human nature.

I want all the titles.

The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion.

Its really most remarkable how the human race is so seldom satisfied with what its got. Give a man the world and he's pining for the moon.

It is of the nobility of man's soul that he is insatiable: for he hath a benefactor so prone to give, that he delighteth in us for asking. Do not your inclinations tell you that the WORLD is yours? Do you not covet all? Do you not long to have it; to enjoy it; to overcome it? To what end do men gather riches, but to multiply more? Do they not like Pyrrhus the King of Epire, add house to house and lands to lands, that they may get it all?

Power is sweet, and when you are a little clerk you love its sweetness quite as much as if you were an emperor, and maybe you love it a good deal more.

To have and to want more that is life.

Fishermen, no matter what supreme good fortune befalls them, cannot ever be absolutely satisfied. It is a fundamental weakness of intellect.

The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men always do so when they can.but when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means, then there is folly and blame.