John Locke > Quotes

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

“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.”
― John Locke

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not common.”
― John Locke

“The only defense against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.”
― John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education

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

“Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain.”
― John Locke

“Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.”
― John Locke

“Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
― John Locke, Second Treatise of Government

“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.”
― John Locke

“Revolt is the right of the people”
― John Locke

“No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.”
― John Locke

“There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.”
― John Locke

“So that, in effect, religion, which should most distinguish us from beasts, and ought most peculiarly to elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts themselves.”
― 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, all sincere; nothing too much; nothing wanting!”
― John Locke

“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.”
― John Locke

“All wealth is the product of labor.”
― John Locke

“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.”
― John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“Our Business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.”
― Locke John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Volume II

“What worries you masters you.”
― John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding - Volume I

“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, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.”
― John Locke

“Few men think, yet all will have opinions. Hence men’s opinions are superficial and confused.”
― John Locke, The Empiricists: Locke: Concerning Human Understanding; Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge & 3 Dialogues; Hume: Concerning Human Understanding & Concerning Natural Religio

“The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made.”
― John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“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, Second Treatise of Government

“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 better for anything else.”
― 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, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.”
― John Locke

“Whosoever will list himself under the banner of Christ, must, in the first place and above all things, make war upon his own lusts and vices. It is in vain for any man to usurp the name of Christian, without holiness of life, purity of manners, benignity and meekness of spirit.”
― John Locke, Unknown Book 12380837

“I pretend not to teach, but to inquire; and therefore cannot but confess here again,–that external and internal sensation are the only passages I can find of knowledge to the understanding. These alone, as far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this DARK ROOM. For, methinks, the understanding is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from light, with only some little openings left, to let in external visible resemblances, or ideas of things without: which, would they but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them.”
― John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“But what if he neglect the care of his soul? I answer: What if he neglect the care of his health or of his estate, which things are nearlier related to the government of the magistrate than the other? Will the magistrate provide by an express law that such a one shall not become poor or sick? Laws provide, as much as is possible, that the goods and health of subjects be not injured by the fraud and violence of others; they do not guard them from the negligence or ill-husbandry of the possessors themselves. No man can be forced to be rich or healthful whether he will or no. Nay, God Himself will not save men against their wills.”
― John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration