John Locke Quotes

What worries you, masters you.

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.

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.

Who lies for you will lie against you.

The most precious of all possessions is power over ourselves.

Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other.

Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.

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

Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.

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

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

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.

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

Curiosity in children, is but an appetite for knowledge. The great reason why children abandon themselves wholly to silly pursuits and trifle away their time insipidly is, because they find their curiosity balked, and their inquiries neglected.

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society and made by the legislative power vested in it and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man.

Revolt is the right of the people

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.

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

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.

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

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

Who are we to tell anyone what they can or can't do?

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

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.

All wealth is the product of labor.

If any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people by his own authority and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government.

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

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

The picture of a shadow is a positive thing.

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

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

Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others

The only fence 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.

Where there is no law there is no freedom.

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

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

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 assuming prejudices, overweening presumption, and narrowing our minds.

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

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

Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.

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.

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.

Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses.

The business of education is not to make the young perfect in any one of the sciences, but so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them - capable of any, when they shall apply themselves to it.

How long have you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?

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.

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.

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.

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.