John Locke Quotes & Sayings

Truth certainly would do well enough, if she were once left to shift for herself ... She is not taught by laws, nor has she any need of force, to procure her entrance into the minds of men. — John Locke

When Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it. — John Locke

Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches. — John Locke

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

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. — John Locke

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues. — John Locke

Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. — John Locke

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. — John Locke

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. — John Locke

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

All the entertainment and talk of history is nothing almost but fighting and killing: and the honour and renown that is bestowed on conquerors (who for the most part are but the great butchers of mankind) farther mislead growing youth, who by this means come to think slaughter the laudable business of mankind, and the most heroic of virtues. — John Locke

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

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

If we trace the progress of our minds, and with attention observe how it repeats, adds together, and unites its simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, it will lead us farther than at first, perhaps, we should have imagined. — John Locke

The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property. — John Locke

Nature never makes excellent things, for mean or no uses: and it is hardly to be conceived, that our infinitely wise Creator, should make so admirable a Faculty, as the power of Thinking, that Faculty which comes nearest the Excellency of his own incomprehensible Being, to be so idlely and uselesly employ'd, at least 1/4 part of its time here, as to think constantly, without remembering any of those Thoughts, without doing any good to it self or others, or being anyway useful to any other part of Creation. — John Locke

The chief art of learning is to attempt but a little at a time. — John Locke

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

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

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

I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. — John Locke

For those who either perceive but dully, or retain the ideas that come into their minds but ill, who cannot readily excite or compound them, will have little matter to think on. — John Locke

Chapter VII
Of Simple Ideas of both Sensation and Reflection
1. Ideas of pleasure and pain.
There be other simple ideas which convey themselves into the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection, viz. pleasure or delight,
and its opposite, pain, or uneasiness; power; existence; unity. — John Locke

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 ... — John Locke

Knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes. — John Locke

But since He gave it them for their benefit and the greatest conveniences of life they were capable to draw form it, it cannot be supposed He meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational (and labour was to be his title to it) ... — John Locke

He that would seriously set upon the search of truth, ought in the first place to prepare his mind with a love of it. For he that loves it not, will not take much pains to get it; nor be much concerned when he misses it. — John Locke

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. — John Locke

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

These two, I say, viz. external material things, as the objects of SENSATION, and the operations of our own minds within, as the objects of REFLECTION, are to me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings. — John Locke

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

I find every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly: and where it fails them, they cry out, It is a matter of faith, and above reason. — John Locke

For the civil government can give no new right to the church, nor the church to the civil government. So that, whether the magistrate join himself to any church, or separate from it, the church remains always as it was before - a free and voluntary society. It neither requires the power of the sword by the magistrate's coming to it, nor does it lose the right of instruction and excommunication by his going from it. This is the fundamental and immutable right of a spontaneous society - that it has power to remove any of its members who transgress the rules of its institution; but it cannot, by the accession of any new members, acquire any right of jurisdiction over those that are not joined with it. — John Locke

Struggle is nature's way of strengthening it — John Locke

He that in the ordinary affairs of life would admit of nothing but direct plain demonstration would be sure of nothing in this world but of perishing quickly. — John Locke

As it is in the body, so it is in the mind; practice makes it what it is, and most even of those excellencies, what are looked on as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch, only by repeated actions. — John Locke

Untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but obscurity. — John Locke

Thirdly, the supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the people should have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that, by entering into society, which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an absurdity for any man to own. — John Locke

If the Gospel and the Apostles may be credited, no man can be a Christian without charity, and without that faith which works, not by force, but by love. — John Locke

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

Curiosity in children is but an appetite for knowledge. — John Locke

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

Logic is the anatomy of thought. — John Locke

The Ideas of primary Qualities of Bodies, are Resemblances of them, and their Patterns do really exist in the Bodies themselves; but the Ideas, produced in us by these Secondary Qualities, have no resemblance of them at all. There is nothing like our Ideas, existing in the Bodies themselves. They are in Bodies, we denominate from them, only a Power to produce those Sensations in us: And what is Sweet, Blue or Warm in Idea, is but the certain Bulk, Figure, and Motion of the insensible parts in the Bodies themselves, which we call so. — John Locke

In my opinion, understanding who your target audience is, and what they want, and writing to them (and only them!) is the most important component of being successful as an author. — 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

If to break loose from the bounds of reason, and to want that restraint of examination and judgment which keeps us from choosing or doing the worst, be liberty, true liberty, madmen and fools are the only freemen: but yet, I think, nobody would choose to be mad for the sake of such liberty, but he that is mad already. — John Locke

All wealth is the product of labor. — John Locke

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

'Tis true that governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit everyone who enjoys a share of protection should pay out of his estate his proportion of the maintenance of it. — John Locke

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

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

The body of People may with Respect resist intolerable Tyranny. — John Locke

Truth, like gold, is not less so for being newly brought out of the mine. — John Locke

If, then, there must be something eternal, let us see what sort of Being it must be. And to that it is very obvious to Reason, that it must necessarily be a cogitative Being. For it is as impossible to conceive that ever bare incogitative Matter should produce a thinking intelligent Being, as that nothing should of itself produce Matter ... — John Locke

Neither the inveterateness of the mischief, nor the prevalency of the fashion, shall be any excuse for those who will not take care about the meaning of their own words, and will not suffer the insignificancy of their expressions to be inquired into. — John Locke

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

In the second place, the care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. And such is the nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force. Confiscation of estate, imprisonment, torments, nothing of that nature can have any such efficacy as to make men change the inward judgement that they have framed of things. — John Locke

Hence it is a mistake to think, that the supreme or legislative power of any common-wealth, can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them at pleasure. — 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

It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach. — John Locke

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

Though the familiar use of things about us take off our wonder, yet it cures not our ignorance. — John Locke

As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivated, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, enclose it from the common. — John Locke

It is labour indeed that puts the difference on everything. — John Locke

[I]t being reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a Wolf or a lion ... — John Locke

Thus the ideas, as well as children, of our youth, often die before us: and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching; where, though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery moulders away. — John Locke

The most perfect character is supposed to lie between those extremes; retaining an equal ability and taste for books, company, and business; preserving in conversation that discernment and delicacy which arise from polite letters; and in business, that probity and accuracy which are the natural result of a just philosophy. — John Locke

It is hard to know what other way men can come at truth, to lay hold of it, if they do not dig and search for it as for gold and hid treasure; but he that
does so must have much earth and rubbish before he gets the pure metal; sand, and pebbles, and dross usually lie blended with it, but the gold is nevertheless gold, and will enrich the man that employs his pains to seek and separate it. — John Locke

He would be laughed at, that should go about to make a fine dancer out of a country hedger, at past fifty. And he will not have much better success, who shall endeavour, at that age, to make a man reason well, or speak handsomely, who has never been used to it, though you should lay before him a collection of all the best precepts of logic or oratory. — John Locke

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. — John Locke

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

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. — John Locke

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

Since nothing appears to me to give Children so much becoming Confidence and Behavior, and so raise them to the conversation of those above their Age, as Dancing. I think they should be taught to dance as soon as they are capable of learning it. — John Locke

A father would do well, as his son grows up, and is capable of it, to talk familiarly with him; nay, ask his advice, and consult with him about those things wherein he has any knowledge or understanding. By this, the father will gain two things, both of great moment. The sooner you treat him as a man, the sooner he will begin to be one; and if you admit him into serious discourses sometimes with you, you will insensibly raise his mind above the usual amusements of youth, and those trifling occupations which it is commonly wasted in. — John Locke

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

The only thing we are naturally afraid of is pain, or loss of pleasure. And because these are not annexed to any shape, colour, or size of visible objects, we are frighted of none of them, till either we have felt pain from them, or have notions put into us that they will do us harm. — 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

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

The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone — John Locke

Words, in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him who uses them. — John Locke

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

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

Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything. — John Locke

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

How vain, I say, it is to expect demonstration and certainty in things not capable of it; and refuse assent to very rational propositions, and act contrary to very plain and clear truths, because they cannot be made out so evident as to surmount every the least (I will not say reason, but) pretence of doubting. — John Locke

Men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, and while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no time to tend their health either of body or mind. — John Locke

The works of nature and the works of revelation display religion to mankind in characters so large and visible that those who are not quite blind may in them see and read the first principles and most necessary parts of it and from thence penet into those infinite depths filled with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. — John Locke

Why, then, does this burning zeal for God, for the Church, and for the salvation of souls - burning I say, literally, with fire and faggot - pass by those moral vices and wickednesses, without any chastisement, which are acknowledged by all men to be diametrically opposite to the profession of Christianity, and bend all its nerves either to the introducing of ceremonies, or to the establishment of opinions, which for the most part are about nice and intricate matters, that exceed the capacity of ordinary understandings? — John Locke

Every man carries about him a touchstone, if he will make use of it, to distinguish substantial gold from superficial glitterings, truth from appearances. And indeed the use and benefit of this touchstone, which is natural reason, is spoiled and lost only by assumed prejudices, overweening presumption, and narrowing our minds. — John Locke

Men's happiness or misery is [for the] most part of their own making. — John Locke

Whosoever is found variable, and changeth manifestly without manifest cause, giveth suspicion of corruption: therefore, always, when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, and declare it, together with the reasons that move thee to change. — John Locke

Methinks Sir Robert should have carried his Monarchical Power one step higher and satisfied the World, that Princes might eat their Subjects too. — John Locke

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? — John Locke

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

Defects and weakness in men's understandings, as well as other faculties, come from want of a right use of their own minds; I am apt to think, the fault is generally mislaid upon nature, and there is often a complaint of want of parts, when the fault lies in want of a due improvement of them. — John Locke

We are born to be, if we please, rational creatures, but it is use and exercise only that makes us so, and we are indeed so no farther than industry and application has carried us. — John Locke

This is to think, that men are so foolish, that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by pole-cats, or foxes; but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions. — John Locke

And because it may be too great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons, who have the power of making laws, to have also in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves from obedience to the laws they make, and suit the law, both in its making, and execution, to their own private advantage. — John Locke