John Locke Quotes (87 Quotes)


    The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have, and therefore should be secured, because they seldom return again.

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

    Our Savior's great rule, that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, is such a fundamental truth for the regulating of human society, that, by that alone, one might without difficulty determine all the cases and doubts in social morality.

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

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



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

    Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.

    Reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal father of light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by God....

    In all things, therefore, where we have clear evidence from our ideas, and those principles of knowledge I have above mentioned, reason is the proper judge and revelation, though it may, in consenting with it, confirm its dictates, yet cannot in such cases invalidate its decrees nor can we be obliged, where we have the clear and evident sentience of reason, to quit it for the contrary opinion, under a pretence that it is matter of faith which can have no authority against the plain and clear dictates of reason.

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

    Our knowledge of our own existence is intuitive. As for our own existence, we perceive it so plainly and so certainly, that it neither needs nor is capable of any proof.... I think, I reason, I feel pleasure and pain can any of these be more evident to me than my own existence ... For if I know I feel pain, it is evident I have as certain perception of my own existence, as of the existence of the pain I feel or if I know I doubt, I have as certain perception of the existence of the thing doubting, as of that thought which I call doubt. Experience then convinces us, that we have an intuitive knowledge of our own existence, and an internal infallible perception that we are. In every act of sensation, reasoning, or thinking, we are conscious to ourselves of our own being and, in this matter, come not short of the highest degree of certainty.

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

    Revelation in matters where reason cannot judge, or but probably, ought to be hearkened to. First, Whatever proposition is revealed, of whose truth our mind, by its natural faculties and notions, cannot judge, that is purely matter of faith, and above reason.

    Though I have said above.... That all men by Nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of Equality Age or Virtue may give Men a just Precedency Excellency of Parts and Merit may place others above the common level Birth may subject some, and Alliance or Benefits others, to pay an Observance to those to whom Nature, Gratitude or other Respects may have made it due and yet all this consists with the Equality which all men are in, in respect of Jurisdiction or Dominion one over another, which was the Equality I there spoke of ... being that equal Right that every Man hath, to his natural Freedom, without being subjected to the Will or Authority of any other Man.

    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.

    Set the mind to work, and apply the thoughts vigorously to the business, for it holds in the struggles of the mind, as in those of war, that to think we shall conquer is to conquer.

    The Legislative cannot transfer the Power of Making Laws to any other hands. For it being but a delegated Power from the People, they who have it, cannot pass it over to others. The People alone can appoint the Form of the Commonwealth, which is by Constituting the Legislative, and appointing in whose hands that shall be.

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

    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.

    He that will have his son have respect for him and his orders, must himself have a great reverence for his son.

    Vague and mysterious forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science and hard or misapplied words with little or no meaning have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of specu.

    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.


    I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.

    The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate

    Error is none the better for being common, nor truth the worse for having lain neglected

    Truth, then, seems to me, in the proper import of the word, to signify nothing but the joining or separating of Signs, as the Things signified by them do agree or disagree one with another. The joining or separating of signs here meant, is what by another name we call proposition. So that truth properly belongs only to propositions whereof there are two sorts, viz. mental and verbal as there are two sorts of signs commonly made use of, viz. ideas and words.

    The improvement of the understanding is for two ends first, for our own increase of knowledge secondly, to enable us to deliver and make out that knowledge to others.

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

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

    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.

    Whenever the 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 farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence.

    We are a kind of Chameleon, taking our hue the hue of our moral character, from those who are about us.

    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.

    Any one reflecting upon the thought he has of the delight, which any present or absent thing is apt to produce in him, has the idea we call love.

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


    Related Authors


    Heraclitus - Arthur Schopenhauer - Thomas Carlyle - Soren Kierkegaard - Protagoras - Mohammad Khatami - Michel de Montaigne - Friedrich von Schelling - Epicurus - Antisthenes


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