John Locke Quotes

We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.

~ John Locke

For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own, or other men's opinions? The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others.

~ John Locke

The only defense against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

~ John Locke

...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

Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.

~ John Locke

What worries you, masters you.

~ John Locke

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

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.

~ John Locke

Sec. 10. Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other man receives damage by his transgression: in which case he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of punishment common to him with other men, a particular right to seek reparation from him that has done it: and any other person, who finds it just, may also join with him that is injured, and assist him in recovering from the offender so much as may make satisfaction for the harm he has suffered.

~ John Locke

Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.

~ John Locke

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.

~ John Locke

...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: for liberty is, to be free from restraint and violence from others; which cannot be, where there is no law: but freedom is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lists: (for who could be free, when every other man's humour might domineer over him?) but a liberty to dispose, and order as he lists, his person, actions, possessions, and his whole property, within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own.

~ John Locke

As usurpation is the exercise of power, which another hath a right to; so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which no body can have a right to. And this is making use of the power any one has in his hands, not for the good of those who are under it, but for his own private separate advantage. When the governor, however intitled, makes not the law, but his will, the rule; and his commands and actions are not directed to the preservation of the properties of his people, but the satisfaction of his own ambition, revenge, covetousness, or any other irregular passion.

~ John Locke

No man in civil society can be exempted from the laws of it: for if any man may do what he thinks fit, and there be no appeal on earth, for redress or security against any harm he shall do; I ask, whether he be not perfectly still in the state of nature, and so can be no part or member of that civil society; unless any one will say, the state of nature and civil society are one and the same thing, which I have never yet found any one so great a patron of anarchy as to affirm.

~ John Locke

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.

~ John Locke

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

~ John Locke

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

~ John Locke

[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

But now, if I be marching on with my utmost vigour in that way which, according to the sacred geography, leads straight to Jerusalem, why am I beaten and ill-used by others because, perhaps, I wear not buskins; because my hair is not of the right cut; because, perhaps, I have not been dipped in the right fashion; because I eat flesh upon the road, or some other food which agrees with my stomach; because I avoid certain by-ways, which seem unto me to lead into briars or precipices; because, amongst the several paths that are in the same road, I choose that to walk in which seems to be the straightest and cleanest; because I avoid to keep company with some travellers that are less grave and others that are more sour than they ought to be; or, in fine, because I follow a guide that either is, or is not, clothed in white, or crowned with a mitre?

~ John Locke

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

This is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in. Those who have read of every thing are thought to understand every thing too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment.

~ John Locke

New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed without any other reason but because they are not already common.

~ John Locke

All men are liable to error and most men are ... by passion or interest under temptation to it.

~ John Locke

Fear is an uneasiness of the mind upon the thought of a future evil likely to befall us.

~ 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

As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears.

~ John Locke

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

~ John Locke

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

All wealth is the product of labor.

~ John Locke

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

~ John Locke

Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.

~ John Locke

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.

~ John Locke

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

~ John Locke

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

~ John Locke

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

~ John Locke

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

~ John Locke

Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip.

~ John Locke

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

It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean.

~ John Locke

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