John Locke Quotes

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.

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.

Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind upon the receipt of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge

Women are cats ... and love to scratch even those they're fond of. Sometimes the more they love them the harder they scratch.

Women are women and can't help themselves.

Every man's first declaration of love is bathos--the zenith of his passion connoting perhaps the nadir of his intelligence.

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

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

There are a thousand ways to Wealth, but only one way to Heaven.

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

There cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason.

Habits wear more constantly and with greatest force than reason, which, when we have most need of it, is seldom fairly consulted, and more rarely obeyed

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?

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

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

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.

We are all a sort of chameleons, that still take a tincture from things near us: nor is it to be wondered at in children, who better understand what they see, than what they hear.

Faith is the assent to any proposition not made out by the deduction of reason but upon the credit of the proposer.

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.

Certain subjects yield a general power that may be applied in any direction and should be studied by all.

So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with.

'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.

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.

Not time is the measure of movement but: ...each constant periodic appearance of ideas.

Inuring children gently to suffer some degrees of pain without shrinking, is a way to gain firmness to their minds, and lay a foundation for courage and resolution in the future part of their lives.

[H]e that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced to the contrary.

Struggle is nature's way of strengthening it

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

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.

I doubt not, but from self-evident Propositions, by necessary Consequences, as incontestable as those in Mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out.

I thought that I had no time for faith nor time to pray, then I saw an armless man saying his Rosary with his feet.

In France the men all live in cafes, the children are all put out to nurse, and the women, saving the respect of mademoiselle -- well, the less said about them the better.

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

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.

The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone

Knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes.

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

Children (nay, and men too) do most by example.

The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have.

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

Mathematical proofs, like diamonds, are hard and clear, and will be touched with nothing but strict reasoning.

Try all things, hold fast that which is good.

Let not men think there is no truth, but in the sciences that they study, or the books that they read.

I am sure, zeal or love for truth can never permit falsehood to be used in the defense of it.

MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent.

In the beginning, all the world was America.

Don't be a genius, my son, it isn't good for anybody.

Children are the root of all evil.... Happy the man who has his quiver empty.

I think love is serious. It's like an invention: sometimes it lies deep down inside you, great and quiet--and at other times it racks you and keeps you from sleeping.

Man is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out of the common road.