John Locke Quotes

246 Sourced Quotes

The difference, so observable in men's understandings and parts, does not arise so much from their natural faculties, as acquired habits.

John Locke
Let not men think there is no truth, but in the sciences that they study, or the books that they read.

John Locke
I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other.

John Locke
The study of mathematics would show... the necessity there is in reasoning, to separate all the distinct ideas, and to see the habitudes that all those concerned in the present inquiry have to one another, and to lay by those which relate not to the proposition in hand, and wholly to leave them out of the reckoning.

John Locke
Since nothing appears to me to give Children so much becoming Confidence and Behavior, and so raise them to the conversation of those above their Age, as Dancing. I think they should be taught to dance as soon as they are capable of learning it.

John Locke
Nobody is under an obligation to know every thing. Knowledge and science in general is the business only of those who are at ease and leisure.

John Locke
Books seem to me to be pestilent things, and infect all that trade in them...with something very perverse and brutal. Printers, binders, sellers, and others that make a trade and gain out of them have universally so odd a turn and corruption of mind that they have a way of dealing peculiar to themselves, and not conformed to the good of society and that general fairness which cements mankind.

John Locke
If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much what as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.

John Locke
The Legislative cannot transfer the Power of Making Laws to any other hands. For it being but a delegated Power from the People, they who have it, cannot pass it over to others. The People alone can appoint the Form of the Commonwealth, which is by Constituting the Legislative, and appointing in whose hands that shall be.

John Locke
A king is a mortal god on earth, unto whom the living God hath lent his own name as a great honour; but withal told him, he should die like a man, lest he should be proud, and flatter himself that God hath with his name imparted unto him his nature also.

John Locke
When we know our own strength, we shall the better know what to undertake with hopes of success...

John Locke
In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity.

John Locke
He that judges without informing himself to the utmost that he is capable, cannot acquit himself of judging amiss

John Locke
When I had gone through the whole, and saw what a plain, simple, reasonable thing Christianity was, suited to all conditions and capacities; and in the morality of it now, with divine authority, established into a legible law, so far surpassing all that philosophy and human reason had attained to, or could possibly make effectual to all degrees of man kind; I was flattered to think it might be of some use in the world.

John Locke
I find every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly: and where it fails them, they cry out, It is a matter of faith, and above reason.

John Locke
For it will be very difficult to persuade men of sense that he who with dry eyes and satisfaction of mind can deliver his brother to the executioner to be burnt alive, does sincerely and heartily concern himself to save that brother from the flames of hell in the world to come.

John Locke
The mind ought to examine all the grounds of probability, and upon a due balancing the whole, reject or receive it proportionably to the preponderancy of probability on the one side or the other.

John Locke
For the understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by its own sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having less regret for what has escaped it, because it is unknown.

John Locke
If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors.

John Locke
He that in the ordinary affairs of life would admit of nothing but direct plain demonstration would be sure of nothing in this world but of perishing quickly.

John Locke
Till a man can judge whether they be truths or not, his understanding is but little improved, and thus men of much reading, though greatly learned, but may be little knowing.

John Locke
It is one thing to persuade, another to command; one thing to press with arguments, another with penalties.

John Locke
Mathematical proofs, like diamonds, are hard as well as clear, and will be touched with nothing but strict reasoning.

John Locke
Truth certainly would do well enough, if she were once left to shift for herself...She is not taught by laws, nor has she any need of force, to procure her entrance into the minds of men.

John Locke
Words, in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him who uses them.

John Locke