John Locke quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by John Locke

John Locke Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from John Locke on Wise Famous Quotes.

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

Firmness or stiffness of the mind is not from adherence to truth, but submission to prejudice.

If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.

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.

God is the place of spirits, as spaces are the places of bodies.

Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind upon the receipt of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge

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

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

This is my destiny - I'm supposed to do this, dammit! Don't tell me what I can and can't do!

Our Business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.

Don't tell me what I can't do!

Children (nay, and men too) do most by example.

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.

Faith is the assent to any proposition not made out by the deduction of reason but upon the credit of the proposer.

Making laws with penalties of death, and consequently

With books we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Don't let the things you don't have prevent you from using what you do have.

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

The least and most imperceptible impressions received in our infancy have consequences very important and of long duration.

The Church which taught men not to keep faith with heretics, had no claim to toleration.

It is vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving wherein men find pleasure to be deceived.

Consciousness is the perception of what passes in man's own mind.

It is labour indeed that puts the difference on everything.

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.

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

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

business of man is to be happy,

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

Affectation is an awkward and forced imitation of what should be genuine and easy, wanting the beauty that accompanies what is natural.

To be rational is so glorious a thing, that two-legged creatures generally content themselves with the title.

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.

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

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

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

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

What humanity abhors, custom reconciles and recommends to us.

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

Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others

[Individuals] have a right to defend themselves and recover by force what by unlawful force is taken from them.

That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art.

Knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes.

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.

It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach.

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

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

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

Many a good poetic vein is buried under a trade, and never produces any thing for want of improvement.

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.

Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature

Though the water running in the fountain be every ones, yet who can doubt, but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out?

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

In the beginning, all the world was America.

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

There are some Men of one, some but of two Syllogisms, and no more; and others that can but advance one step farther.

Struggle is nature's way of strengthening it

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.

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.

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.

The great art to learn much is to undertake a little at a time.

He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.

Action is the great business of mankind, and the whole matter about which all laws are conversant.

There are a thousand ways to Wealth, but only one way to Heaven.

The body of People may with Respect resist intolerable Tyranny.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and let it out completely, along with my soul.

To ask at what time a man has first any ideas is to ask when he begins to perceive; having ideas and perception being the same thing.

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

Few men think, yet all will have opinions. Hence men's opinions are superficial and confused.

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

The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate.

I have no reason to suppose that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away everything else.

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

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

In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity Ch.2, 8

[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.

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

All wealth is the product of labor.

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

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.

Since the great foundation of fear is pain, the way to harden and fortify children against fear and danger is to accustom them to suffer pain.

The most precious of all possessions is power over ourselves.

If by gaining knowledge we destroy our health, we labour for a thing that will be useless in our hands.

In the discharge of thy place set before thee the best examples; for imitation is a globe of precepts.

Memory is the power to revive again in our minds those ideas which after imprinting have disappeared, or have been laid aside out of sight.

It is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, to their perfection.

Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything.

Certain subjects yield a general power that may be applied in any direction and should be studied by all.

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

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

It is one thing to show a man that he is in an error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.

Personal Identity depends on Consciousness not on Substance

Justice and truth are the common ties of society

He that will make good use of any part of his life must allow a large part of it to recreation.

Let not men think there is no truth, but in the sciences that they study, or the books that they read.

Mathematical proofs, like diamonds, are hard and clear, and will be touched with nothing but strict reasoning.

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.

Revolt is the right of the people

I am sure, zeal or love for truth can never permit falsehood to be used in the defense of it.

The difference, so observable in men's understandings and parts, does not arise so much from their natural faculties, as acquired habits.

Where there is no desire, there will be no industry.

There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.