Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind, as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he.
To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust.The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place.Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice.
No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
A commonwealth is said to be instituted when a multitude of men do agree, and covenant, every one, with every one, that to whatsoever man, or assembly of men, shall be given by the major part, the right to present the person of them all, that is to say, to be their representative.
The desires, and other passions of man, in themselves, are in his own power; his real difficulties are, to know when they are to be controlled, and when not.
A law of nature, lex naturalis, is a precept or general rule found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or takes away the means of preserving the same.