John Locke quotes
English empiricist and political theorist. Argued the mind begins as a blank slate and that legitimate government rests on consent.
34 passages across 14 themes. More on John Locke.
On mind
“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.”
“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.”
“There cannot any one moral Rule be propos'd, whereof a Man may not justly demand a Reason.”
“He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.”
“Reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it”
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.”
“Children have as much mind to shew that they are free, that their own good actions come from themselves, that they are absolute and independent, as any of the proudest of you grown men, think of them as you please.”
On freedom
“All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.”
“The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom.”
“Government has no other end than the preservation of property.”
“Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent.”
“The reservedness and distance that fathers keep, often deprive their sons of that refuge which would be of more advantage to them than an hundred rebukes or chidings.”
On presence
“But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression.”
“The boundaries of the species, whereby men sort them, are made by men.”
“Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and ought most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts.”
“Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided.”
On action
“This life affords no solid satisfaction, but in the consciousness of having done well, and the hopes of another life.”
“I doubt not, but from self-evident Propositions, by necessary Consequences, as incontestable as those in Mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out.”
“Children (nay, and men too) do most by example.”
“Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.”
On truth
“No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.”
“It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.”
“The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, into which a young gentleman should be enter'd by degrees, as he can bear it; and the earlier the better, so he be in safe and skillful hands to guide him.”
On character
“The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.”
“Preference of vice to virtue, a manifest wrong judgment.”
On wisdom
“Sophistry is only fit to make men more conceited in their ignorance.”
“He that knows anything, knows this, in the first place, that he need not seek long for instances of his ignorance.”
On love
“To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.”
On authenticity
“Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. Thus no Body has any Right to but himself.”
On wonder
“Thus parents, by humouring and cockering them when little, corrupt the principles of nature in their children, and wonder afterwards to taste the bitter waters, when they themselves have poison'd the fountain.”
On listening
“We are all a sort of camelions, that still take a tincture from things near us; nor is it to be wonder'd at in children, who better understand what they see than what they hear.”
On time
“If pains be to be taken to give him a manly air and assurance betimes, it is chiefly as a fence to his virtue when he goes into the world under his own conduct.”
On beauty
“The beauty or uncomeliness of many things, in good and ill breeding, will be better learnt, and make deeper impressions on them, in the examples of others, than from any rules or instructions can be given about them.”
On fear
“You have not that power you ought to have over him, till he comes to be more afraid of offending so good a friend than of losing some part of his future expectation.”