Top 100 John Locke Quotes
#1. Children (nay, and men too) do most by example.
John Locke
#2. He that judges without informing himself to the utmost that he is capable, cannot acquit himself of judging amiss
John Locke
#3. In the discharge of thy place set before thee the best examples; for imitation is a globe of precepts.
John Locke
#4. The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its Author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure, all sincere; nothing too much; nothing wanting!
John Locke
#5. Beating is the worst, and therefore the last means to be us'd in the correction of children, and that only in the cases of extremity, after all gently ways have been try'd, and proved unsuccessful; which, if well observ'd, there will very seldom be any need of blows.
John Locke
#6. Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.
John Locke
#7. 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
#8. The picture of a shadow is a positive thing.
John Locke
#9. Whosoever is found variable, and changeth manifestly without manifest cause, giveth suspicion of corruption: therefore, always, when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, and declare it, together with the reasons that move thee to change.
John Locke
#10. 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.
John Locke
#11. A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a Happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little better for anything else.
John Locke
#12. So that, in effect, religion, which should most distinguish us from beasts, and ought most peculiarly to elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts themselves.
John Locke
#13. Faith is the assent to any proposition not made out by the deduction of reason but upon the credit of the proposer.
John Locke
#14. 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
#15. To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.
John Locke
#16. It is therefore worthwhile, to search out the bounds between opinion and knowledge; and examine by what measures, in things, whereof we have no certain knowledge, we ought to regulate our assent, and moderate our persuasions.
John Locke
#17. 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
#19. A man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many truths, which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty.
John Locke
#20. When we find out an Idea, by whose Intervention we discover the Connexion of two others, this is a Revelation from God to us, by the voice of Reason.
John Locke
#21. 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
#22. He that will have his son have respect for him and his orders, must himself have a great reverence for his son.
John Locke
#23. It is vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving wherein men find pleasure to be deceived.
John Locke
#24. 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
#25. Children generally hate to be idle; all the care then is that their busy humour should be constantly employed in something of use to them
John Locke
#26. Liberty is not an Idea belonging to Volition, or preferring; but to the Person having the Power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the Mind shall chuse or direct.
John Locke
#27. Defects and weakness in men's understandings, as well as other faculties, come from want of a right use of their own minds; I am apt to think, the fault is generally mislaid upon nature, and there is often a complaint of want of parts, when the fault lies in want of a due improvement of them.
John Locke
#28. Is it worth the name of freedom to be at liberty to play the fool?
John Locke
#29. No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.
John Locke
#30. Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.
John Locke
#32. 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
#33. 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
#34. It is one thing to show a man that he is in an error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.
John Locke
#35. Truths are not the better nor the worse for their obviousness or difficulty, but their value is to be measured by their usefulness and tendency.
John Locke
#36. There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.
John Locke
#37. The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good.
John Locke
#38. Truth, like gold, is not less so for being newly brought out of the mine.
John Locke
#39. [M]an 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
#40. Certain subjects yield a general power that may be applied in any direction and should be studied by all.
John Locke
#41. Moral laws are set as a curb and restraint to these exorbitant desires, which they cannot be but by rewards and punishments, that will over-balance the satisfaction any one shall propose to himself in the breach of the law.
John Locke
#42. Curiosity should be as carefully cherish'd in children, as other appetites suppress'd.
John Locke
#43. The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone
John Locke
#44. Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain.
John Locke
#45. If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
John Locke
#46. Crooked things may be as stiff and unflexible as streight: and Men may be as positive and peremptory in Error as in Truth.
John Locke
#47. Many a good poetic vein is buried under a trade, and never produces any thing for want of improvement.
John Locke
#48. Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
John Locke
#49. 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
#50. 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
#51. The Church which taught men not to keep faith with heretics, had no claim to toleration.
John Locke
#52. There are a thousand ways to Wealth, but only one way to Heaven.
John Locke
#53. Methinks Sir Robert should have carried his Monarchical Power one step higher and satisfied the World, that Princes might eat their Subjects too.
John Locke
#54. Consciousness is the perception of what passes in man's own mind.
John Locke
#55. Practice conquers the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule.
John Locke
#56. The greatest part cannot know, and therefore they must believe.
John Locke
#57. Whoever uses force without Right ... puts himself into a state of War with those, against whom he uses it, and in that state all former Ties are canceled, all other Rights cease, and every one has a Right to defend himself, and to resist the Aggressor.
John Locke
#58. Thus the ideas, as well as children, of our youth, often die before us: and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching; where, though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery moulders away.
John Locke
#59. The chief art of learning is to attempt but a little at a time.
John Locke
#60. The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate.
John Locke
#61. Nay, if we may openly speak the truth, and as becomes one man to another, neither Pagan nor Mahometan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.
John Locke
#62. Let not men think there is no truth, but in the sciences that they study, or the books that they read.
John Locke
#63. He that makes use of another's fancy or necessity to sell ribbons or cloth dearer to him than to another man at the same time, cheats him.
John Locke
#64. To prejudge other men's notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eyes.
John Locke
#65. I do not say this, that I think there should be no difference of opinions in conversation, nor opposition in men's discourses ... 'Tis not the owning one's dissent from another, that I speak against, but the manner of doing it.
John Locke
#66. Not time is the measure of movement but: ... each constant periodic appearance of ideas.
John Locke
#67. There cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason. Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.
John Locke
#68. There are two sides, two players. One is light, the other is dark.
John Locke
#69. 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
#70. Knowledge being to be had only of visible and certain truth, error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment, giving assent to that which is not true.
John Locke
#71. There's always a random element to taking lives.
John Locke
#72. And when a countryman says the cold freezes water, though the word freezing seems to import some action, yet truly it signifies nothing, but the effect, videlicet that water, that was before fluid, is become hard and consistent, without containing any idea of the action whereby it is done.
John Locke
#73. God hath woven into the principles of human nature such a tenderness for their off-spring, that there is little fear that parents should use their power with too much rigour;
John Locke
#74. I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.
John Locke
#75. We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.
John Locke
#76. I thought that I had no time for faith nor time to pray, then I saw an armless man saying his Rosary with his feet.
John Locke
#77. Untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but obscurity.
John Locke
#78. The necessity of pursuing true happiness is the foundation of all liberty- Happiness, in its full extent, is the utmost pleasure we are capable of.
John Locke
#79. The next thing is by gentle degrees to accustom children to those things they are too much afraid of. But here great caution is to be used, that you do not make too much haste, nor attempt this cure too early, for fear lest you increase the mischief instead of remedying it.
John Locke
#80. When Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it.
John Locke
#81. The difference, so observable in men's understandings and parts, does not arise so much from their natural faculties, as acquired habits.
John Locke
#82. 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
#83. Habits wear more constantly and with greatest force than reason, which, when we have most need of it, is seldom fairly consulted, and more rarely obeyed
John Locke
#84. We are born to be, if we please, rational creatures, but it is use and exercise only that makes us so, and we are indeed so no farther than industry and application has carried us.
John Locke
#85. 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
#86. To give a man full knowledge of morality, I would send him to no other book than the New Testament.
John Locke
#87. But since He gave it them for their benefit and the greatest conveniences of life they were capable to draw form it, it cannot be supposed He meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational (and labour was to be his title to it) ...
John Locke
#88. 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
#89. God, when he makes the prophet, does not unmake the man.
John Locke
#90. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and let it out completely, along with my soul.
John Locke
#91. We are born with faculties and powers capable almost of anything, such at least as would carry us farther than can easily be imagined: but it is only the exercise of those powers, which gives us ability and skill in any thing, and leads us towards perfection.
John Locke
#92. Children should from the beginning be bred up in an abhorrence of killing or tormenting any living creature; and be taught not to spoil or destroy any thing, unless it be for the preservation or advantage of some other that is nobler.
John Locke
#93. The better to understand the nature, manner, and extent of our knowledge, one thing is carefully to be observed concerning the ideas we have; and that is, that some of them are simple and some complex.
John Locke
#94. It is labour indeed that puts the difference on everything.
John Locke
#95. [H]e that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced to the contrary.
John Locke
#96. Where there is no property there is no injustice.
John Locke
#97. Every man must some time or other be trusted to himself.
John Locke
#98. We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.
John Locke
#99. Struggle is nature's way of strengthening it
John Locke
#100. 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.
John Locke
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