John Locke Quotes

How long have you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?

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 law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.

Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.

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.

No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.

Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.

There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.

The great question which, in all ages, has disturbed mankind, and brought on them the greatest part of their mischiefs ... has been, not whether be power in the world, nor whence it came, but who should have it.

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.

Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others

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.

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 the better for anything else.

All wealth is the product of labor.

Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.

One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant.

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.

All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.

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

The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good.

The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.

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

Logic is the anatomy of thought.

But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression

Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches.

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.

The visible mark of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of creation.

Our deeds disguise us. People need endless time to try on their deeds, until each knows the proper deeds for him to do. But every day, every hour, rushes by. There is no time.

To give a man full knowledge of morality, I would send him to no other book than the New Testament.

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

Practice conquers the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule.

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

There cannot be greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse.

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.

A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.

Curiosity in children, is but an appetite for knowledge. The great reason why children abandon themselves wholly to silly pursuits and trifle away their time insipidly is, because they find their curiosity balked, and their inquiries neglected.

I attribute the little I know to my not having been ashamed to ask for information, and to my rule of conversing with all descriptions of men on those topics that form their own peculiar professions and pursuits.