Hobbes was born prematurely when his mother heard the Spanish Armada was coming. Fear, he later said, was his twin. He traveled Europe as a tutor, met Galileo in Florence, and fled to Paris during the English Civil War. There he wrote Leviathan, arguing that humans in a state of nature are in constant war, and that only an absolute sovereign can keep the peace. The book offended royalists and republicans alike. He returned to England after the Restoration and spent his old age translating Homer. He died at ninety-one.
Born prematurely when his mother heard rumors that the Spanish Armada was approaching. 'My mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear,' he later wrote. His father, a vicar, disappeared after a brawl outside his church.
Words
“The life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
