Top 300 Quotes & Sayings by John Locke

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English philosopher John Locke.

Last updated on December 3, 2024.

John Locke was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, Locke is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American Revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. Internationally, Locke’s political-legal principles continue to have a profound influence on the theory and practice of limited representative government and the protection of basic rights and freedoms under the rule of law.

English - Philosopher | August 29, 1632 - October 28, 1704

Source: Wikipedia

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

John Locke

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

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

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 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

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

John Locke

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

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

All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.

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

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 reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.

John Locke

I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.

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

What worries you, masters you.

John Locke

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 wealth is the product of labor.

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

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

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

John Locke

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

John Locke

Where there is no property there is no injustice.

John Locke

Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.

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

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

John Locke

It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach.

John Locke

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

John Locke

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

John Locke

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

John Locke

Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.

John Locke

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

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

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

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

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

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

John Locke

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

John Locke

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

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

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

John Locke

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

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

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

John Locke

With books we stand on the shoulders of giants.

John Locke

Who lies for you will lie against you.

John Locke

Whoever uses force without Right ... puts himself into a state of War with those, against whom he uses it, and in that state all former Ties are canceled, all other Rights cease, and every one has a Right to defend himself, and to resist the Aggressor.

John Locke

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

John Locke

Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything.

John Locke

Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others

John Locke

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.

John Locke

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

John Locke

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.

John Locke

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.

John Locke

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

John Locke

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.

John Locke

The most precious of all possessions is power over ourselves.

John Locke

Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.

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

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.

John Locke

Is it worth the name of freedom to be at liberty to play the fool?

John Locke