John Locke Quotes

246 Sourced Quotes

The native and untaught suggestions of inquisitive children do often offer things, that may set a considering man's thoughts on work. And I think there is frequently more to be learn'd from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men, who talk in a road, according to the notions they have borrowed, and the prejudices of their education.

John Locke
This law of reason makes the deer the Indian's who hath killed it; it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though before it was the common right of everyone.

John Locke
Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.

John Locke
Let them have what instructions you will, and ever so learned lectures of breeding daily inculcated into them, that which will most influence their carriage will be the company they converse with, and the fashion of those about them.

John Locke
Man…hath by nature a power…to preserve his property—that is, his life, liberty, and estate—against the injuries and attempts of other men.

John Locke
General propositions are seldom mentioned in the huts of Indians: much less are they to be found in the thoughts of children.

John Locke
Freedom of Men under Government is, to have a standing Rule to live by, common to every one of that Society, and made by the Legislative Power erected in it; a Liberty to follow my own Will in all things, where the Rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man: as Freedom of Nature is, to be under no other restraint but the Law of Nature.

John Locke
The Indians, whom we call barbarous, observe much more decency and civility in their discourses and conversation, giving one another a fair silent hearing till they have quite done; and then answering them calmly, and without noise or passion. And if it be not so in this civiliz'd part of the world, we must impute it to a neglect in education, which has not yet reform'd this antient piece of barbarity amongst us.

John Locke
He that denies any of the doctrines that Christ has delivered, to be true, denies him to be sent from God, and consequently to be the Messiah; and so ceases to be a Christian.

John Locke
If all be a Dream, then he doth but dream that he makes the Question; and so it is not much matter that a waking Man should answer him.

John Locke
Every step the mind takes in its progress towards knowledge, makes some discovery, which is not only new, but the best too, for the time at least.

John Locke
For a man's property is not at all secure, though there be good and equitable laws to set the bounds of it, between him and his fellow subjects, if he who commands those subjects, have power to take from any private man, what part he pleases of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks good.

John Locke
Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others

John Locke
Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind upon the receipt of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge

John Locke
It is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge.

John Locke
There are a thousand ways to Wealth, but only one way to Heaven.

John Locke
In the discharge of thy place set before thee the best examples; for imitation is a globe of precepts.

John Locke
Merit and good works is the end of man's motion; and conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man's rest; for if a man can be partaker of God's theatre, he shall likewise be partaker of God's rest.

John Locke
Some eyes want spectacles to see things clearly and distinctly: but let not those that use them therefore say nobody can see clearly without them.

John Locke
To measure motion, space is as necessary to be considered as time....[They] are made use of to denote the position of finite: real beings, in respect one to another, in those infinite uniform oceans of duration and space.

John Locke
There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.

John Locke
Neither the inveterateness of the mischief, nor the prevalency of the fashion, shall be any excuse for those who will not take care about the meaning of their own words, and will not suffer the insignificancy of their expressions to be inquired into.

John Locke
General observations drawn from particulars are the jewels of knowledge, comprehending great store in a little room; but they are therefore to be made with the greater care and caution, lest, if we take counterfeit for true, our loss and shame be the greater when our stock comes to a severe scrutiny.

John Locke
Things in print must stand and fall by their own worth, or the reader's fancy.

John Locke
And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of anybody, even of their legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish, or so wicked, as to lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties of the subject.

John Locke
If we trace the progress of our minds, and with attention observe how it repeats, adds together, and unites its simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, it will lead us farther than at first, perhaps, we should have imagined.

John Locke
A blind fortuitous concourse of atoms, not guided by an understanding agent.

John Locke
It is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, to their perfection.

John Locke
Every man carries about him a touchstone, if he will make use of it, to distinguish substantial gold from superficial glitterings, truth from appearances. And indeed the use and benefit of this touchstone, which is natural reason, is spoiled and lost only by assuming prejudices, overweening presumption, and narrowing our minds.

John Locke
Nobody is made anything by hearing of rules, or laying them up in his memory; practice must settle the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule; and you may as well hope to make a good painter, or musician, extempore, by a lecture and instruction in the arts of music and painting, as a coherent thinker, or a strict reasoner, by a set of rules, showing him wherein right reasoning consists.

John Locke