John Locke Quotes

The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.

It is one thing to show a man that he is in an error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The most precious of all possessions is power over ourselves.

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

As usurpation is the exercise of power which another has a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to.

What worries you, masters you.

There cannot be greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse.

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

Where there is no desire, there will be no industry.

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.

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.

The discipline of desire is the background of character.