John Locke

But, by the law of faith, faith is allowed to supply the defect of full obedience: and so the believers are admitted to life and immortality, as if they were righteous.

—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

It is only practice that improves our minds as well as bodies, and we must expect nothing from our understandings any farther than they are perfected by habits.

—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

Nay, if we may openly speak the truth, and as becomes one man to another, neither Pagan nor Mahometan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.

—John Locke

Beasts abstract not.

—John Locke

Truths are not the better nor the worse for their obviousness or difficulty, but their value is to be measured by their usefulness and tendency.

—John Locke

When we find out an Idea, by whose Intervention we discover the Connexion of two others, this is a Revelation from God to us, by the voice of Reason.

—John Locke

The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands: for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others.

—John Locke

Men’s actions are the best guides to their thoughts.

—John Locke

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

—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

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

—John Locke

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

—John Locke

Governments must be left again to the old way of being made by contrivance and the consent of men.

—John Locke

This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief.

—John Locke

Where there is no property, there is no injury.

—John Locke

We are all born slaves, and we must continue so.

—John Locke

But in truth the ideas and images in men’s minds are the invisible powers that constantly govern them, and to these they all universally pay a ready submission.

—John Locke

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.

—John Locke

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.

—John Locke

There being no room for equivocations, there is no need of distinctions.

—John Locke

In truth not of any force to draw those into bondage who have their eyes open.

—John Locke

So that God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate: and the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions.

—John Locke

So that God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate: and the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions.

—John Locke

Seek to make thy course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect.

—John Locke

He that had as good left for his improvement as was already taken up, needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already improved by another’s labour:

—John Locke

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

—John Locke

The better to understand the nature, manner, and extent of our knowledge, one thing is carefully to be observed concerning the ideas we have; and that is, that some of them are simple and some complex.

—John Locke

The better to understand the nature, manner, and extent of our knowledge, one thing is carefully to be observed concerning the ideas we have; and that is, that some of them are simple and some complex.

—John Locke