“In the beginning, all the world was America.”
“Virtue is everywhere that which is thought praiseworthy; and nothing else but that which has the allowance of public esteem is called virtue.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“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.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“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”
“He that judges without informing himself to the utmost that he is capable, cannot acquit himself of judging amiss”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“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.”
“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.”
“Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others”
Source: Two treatises of government
“He that will make good use of any part of his life must allow a large part of it to recreation.”
Source: Some Thoughts Concerning Education
“It is one thing to persuade, another to command; one thing to press with arguments, another with penalties.”
Source: Letters on Toleration
“The tendency to cruelty
should be watched in
children and if they
incline to any such
cruelty, they should be
taught the contrary
usage. For the custom
of tormenting and killing
other animals will, by
degrees, harden their
hearts even toward man.
Children should from
the beginning, be
brought up in an
abhorrence of killing or
tormenting living
beings.”
“But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression”
Source: The Second Treatise of Government: And, A Letter Concerning Toleration
“The most precious of all possessions is power over ourselves.”
“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.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.”
Source: Locke, Berkely and Hume
“Men's happiness or misery is [for the] most part of their own making.”
“Practice conquers the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule.”
“Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses.”
“No peace and security among mankind-let alone common friendship-can ever exist as long as people think that governments get their authority from God and that religion is to be propagated by force of arms.”
“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.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“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.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“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.”
Source: Locke: Political Writings
“When the sacredness of property is talked of, it should be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property.”
“Don't tell me what I can't do!”
“The power of the legislative being derived from the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to make legislators, the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands.”
Source: Two treatises of government
“Tis a Mistake to think this Fault [tyranny] is proper only to Monarchies; other Forms of Government are liable to it, as well as that. For where-ever the Power that is put in any hands for the Government of the People, and the Preservation of their Properties, is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the Arbitrary and Irregular Commands of those that have it: There it presently becomes Tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many.”
Source: Locke: Two Treatises of Government Student Edition
“Had you or I been born at the Bay of Soldania, possibly our Thoughts, and Notions, had not exceeded those brutish ones of the Hotentots that inhabit there: And had the Virginia King Apochancana, been educated in England, he had, perhaps been as knowing a Divine, and as good a Mathematician as any in it. The difference between him, and a more improved English-man, lying barely in this, That the exercise of his Facilities was bounded within the Ways, Modes, and Notions of his own Country, and never directed to any other or farther Enquiries.”
“The body of People may with Respect resist intolerable Tyranny.”
“If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors.”
Source: Two treatises of government
“All men by nature are equal in that equal right that every man hath to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man; being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.”
“He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“General observations drawn from particulars are the jewels of knowledge, comprehending great store in a little room; but they are therefore to be made with the greater care and caution, lest, if we take counterfeit for true, our loss and shame be the greater when our stock comes to a severe scrutiny.”
Source: An essay concerning human understanding ... The twentieth edition, etc
“Consciousness is the perception of what passes in man's own mind.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“Action is the great business of mankind, and the whole matter about which all laws are conversant.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: An analysis of Mr. Locke's Doctrine of ideas .... A defense of Mr. Locke's Opinion concerning personal identity .... A treatise on the conduct of the understanding. Some thoughts concerning reading and study for a gentleman. Elements of natural philosophy. A new method of a common place book. Extracted from the author's works. With a life of the author
“Though the familiar use of things about us take off our wonder, yet it cures not our ignorance.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding: In Four Books
“Truth, like gold, is not less so for being newly brought out of the mine.”
Source: Philosophical Works: Preliminary discourse by the editor. On the conduct of the understanding. An essay concerning human understanding
“God, when he makes the prophet, does not unmake the man.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: An analysis of Mr. Locke's Doctrine of ideas .... A defense of Mr. Locke's Opinion concerning personal identity .... A treatise on the conduct of the understanding. Some thoughts concerning reading and study for a gentleman. Elements of natural philosophy. A new method of a common place book. Extracted from the author's works. With a life of the author
“Untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but obscurity.”
Source: Of human understanding. A defence of Mr. Locke's opinion concerning personal identity. Of the conduct of the understanding. Some thoughts concerning reading and study for a gentleman. Elements of natural philosophy. A new method of common-place-book
“Affectation is an awkward and forced imitation of what should be genuine and easy, wanting the beauty that accompanies what is natural.”
Source: Some Thoughts Concerning Education
“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.”
Source: The works of John Locke. To which is added the life of the author and a collection of several of his pieces, publ. by mr. Desmaizeaux
“Words, in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him who uses them.”
Source: The Locke Reader: Selections from the Works of John Locke with a General Introduction and Commentary
“It is reported of that prodigy of parts, Monsieur Pascal, that till the decay of his health had impaired his memory, he forgot nothing of what he had done, read, or thought, in any part of his rational age. This is a privilege so little known to most men, that it seems almost incredible to those who, after the ordinary way, measure all others by themselves; but yet, when considered, may help us to enlarge our thoughts towards greater perfections of it, in superior ranks of spirits.”
Source: The Philosophical Works of John Locke
“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.”
“Who are we to tell anyone what they can or can't do?”
“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”
Source: Some thoughts on education and an essay on the consequences of the lowering of interest and raising the value of money
“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.”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: An analysis of Mr. Locke's Doctrine of ideas .... A defense of Mr. Locke's Opinion concerning personal identity .... A treatise on the conduct of the understanding. Some thoughts concerning reading and study for a gentleman. Elements of natural philosophy. A new method of a common place book. Extracted from the author's works. With a life of the author
“Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind upon the receipt of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge”
Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
“Error is none the better for being common, nor truth the worse for having lain neglected.”
