John Locke, 1632-1704, was an Englishphilosopher, political theorist, and founder of Empiricism.
After studying medicine at Oxford,Locke served the Earl of Shaftesbury as a physician, and followed him toFrance in 1675. There he spent four years studying Continental philosophy, especially that of Descartes.
On his return, Locke worked with Shaftesbury to block the succession of James, Duke of York, later James II, from the throne — a controversial issue since the Restoration of Bacon’s methods, and provided the first systematic account of an empiricist philosophy and psychology.
His most important political work also appeared in 1690, theTwo Treatises of Government; there he argues that the function of the state is to protect the natural rights of its citizens, primarily to protect the right to property. Though he challenged Thomas Hobbes on the nature of primitive society –for Hobbes it was “nasty, brutish, and short,” while for Locke it was more rational, tolerant, and cooperative — he agreed with him on the origin of the social contract, an implicit agreement between everyone in a society to respect a legal authority, a supreme sovereign, so as to enable the pursuit of happiness.
During the next few years of relative retirement, Locke continued his involvement in political affairs, and hosted many important visitors, including Sir IsaacNewton. In 1693 he wrote an influential tract, SomeThoughts Concerning Education.
John Locke Quotes
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.
John Locke
All mankind… being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
John Locke
All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.
John Locke
All wealth is the product of labor.
John Locke
An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards.
John Locke
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.
John Locke
As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears.
John Locke
Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.
John Locke
Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.
John Locke
Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches.
John Locke
Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.
John Locke
Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.
John Locke
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.
John Locke
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
John Locke
I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.
John Locke
It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach.
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
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
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without anyother reason but because they are not already common.
John Locke
No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.
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
Our deeds disguise us. People need endless time to try on their deeds, until each knows the proper deeds for him to do. But every day, every hour, rushes by. There is no time.
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
Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.
John Locke
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
John Locke
Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.
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
The discipline of desire is the background of character.
John Locke
The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good.
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 law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.
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
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
John Locke
The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.
John Locke
There cannot be greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse.
John Locke
There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.
John Locke
Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.
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
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
We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.
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
What worries you, masters you.
John Locke
Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.
John Locke
Where there is no property there is no injustice.
John Locke
