John Locke Quotes

246 Sourced Quotes

The greatest part cannot know, and therefore they must believe.

John Locke
For number applies itself to men, angels, actions, thoughts; everything that either doth exist, or can be imagined.

John Locke
Earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest batteries; and though, perhaps, sometimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, keep out the enemy, truth, that would captivate or disturbe them.

John Locke
The parts of pure space are immovable, which follows from their inseparability; motion being nothing but change of distance between any two things; but this cannot be between parts that are inseparable; which therefore must needs be at perpetual rest one amongst other.

John Locke
If a man had a positive idea of infinite - he could add two infinites together: nay, make one infinite infinitely bigger than another, absurdities too gross to be confuted.

John Locke
And thus many are ignorant of mathematical truths, not out of any imperfection of their faculties, or uncertainty in the things themselves, but for want of application in acquiring, examining, and by due ways comparing those ideas.

John Locke
Virtue is everywhere that which is thought praiseworthy; and nothing else but that which has the allowance of public esteem is called virtue.

John Locke
Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.

John Locke
The boundaries of the species, whereby men sort them, are made by men.

John Locke
Men's happiness or misery is [for the] most part of their own making.

John Locke
The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have.

John Locke
For those who either perceive but dully, or retain the ideas that come into their minds but ill, who cannot readily excite or compound them, will have little matter to think on.

John Locke
Man is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out of the common road.

John Locke
I have put into thy hands what has been the diversion of some of my idle and heavy hours. If it has the good luck to prove so of any of thine, and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my pains, ill bestowed.

John Locke
Slavery is so vile and miserable an Estate of Man, and so directly opposite to the generous Temper and Courage of our Nation; that 'tis hardly to be conceived, that an Englishman, much less a Gentleman, should plead for't.

John Locke
Men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, and while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no time to tend their health either of body or mind.

John Locke
Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.

John Locke
Untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but obscurity.

John Locke
Probability is the appearance of agreement upon fallible proofs.

John Locke
Though the familiar use of things about us take off our wonder, yet it cures not our ignorance.

John Locke
The mind being, as I have declared, furnished with a great number of the simple ideas conveyed in by the senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by reflection on its own operations, take notice, also, that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together... which, by inadvertency, we apt afterward to talk of and condier as one simple idea.

John Locke
But of all other ideas, it is number, which I think furnishes us with the clearest and most distinct idea of infinity we are capable of.

John Locke
He would be laughed at, that should go about to make a fine dancer out of a country hedger, at past fifty. And he will not have much better success, who shall endeavour, at that age, to make a man reason well, or speak handsomely, who has never been used to it, though you should lay before him a collection of all the best precepts of logic or oratory.

John Locke
Hence it is a mistake to think, that the supreme or legislative power of any common-wealth, can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them at pleasure.

John Locke
Affectation is an awkward and forced imitation of what should be genuine and easy, wanting the beauty that accompanies what is natural.

John Locke
The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man; insomuch, that if it issue not towards men, it will take unto other living creatures; as it is seen in the Turks, cruel people, who, nevertheless, are kind to beasts, and give alms to dogs and birds.

John Locke
There is no such way to gain admittance, or give defence to strange and absurd Doctrines, as to guard them round about with Legions of obscure, doubtful, and undefin'd Words.

John Locke
Who hath a prospect of the different state of perfect happiness or misery that attends all men after this life, depending on their behavior, the measures of good and evil that govern his choice are mightily changed.

John Locke
As it is in the body, so it is in the mind; practice makes it what it is, and most even of those excellencies, what are looked on as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch, only by repeated actions.

John Locke
I doubt not but it will be easily granted, that the knowledge we have of mathematical truths is not only certain, but real knowledge; and not the bare empty vision of vain, insignificant chimeras of the brain.

John Locke