Q0246

Thomas Hobbes

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short
Thinker Thomas Hobbes
School Modern Political Philosophy
Source Leviathan XIII
Theme Nature
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Leviathan XIII, within the tradition of Modern Political Philosophy. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of nature, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Thomas Hobbes's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Thomas Hobbes. (n.d.). the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0246

MLA: Thomas Hobbes. “the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0246.

Chicago: Thomas Hobbes. “the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0246.

Same thinker

More from Thomas Hobbes

  1. [In the state of nature, the life of man is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
  2. During the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called War.
  3. Felicity is a continual progress of the desire, from one object to another.

All quotations by Thomas Hobbes

Same theme

More on nature

  1. Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters flow.
  2. Nothing can be created from nothing by divine agency.
  3. God, or Nature.
  4. [In the state of nature, the life of man is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
  5. Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe…: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

Browse the nature theme