JOHN LOCKE QUOTES IV

English philosopher (1632-1704)

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.

JOHN LOCKE

Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Tags: pain


It is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, to their perfection.

JOHN LOCKE

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding


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

JOHN LOCKE

Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Tags: knowledge


Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.

JOHN LOCKE

Second Treatise of Government

Tags: tyranny


A father would do well, as his son grows up, and is capable of it, to talk familiarly with him; nay, ask his advice, and consult with him about those things wherein he has any knowledge or understanding. By this, the father will gain two things, both of great moment. The sooner you treat him as a man, the sooner he will begin to be one; and if you admit him into serious discourses sometimes with you, you will insensibly raise his mind above the usual amusements of youth, and those trifling occupations which it is commonly wasted in.

JOHN LOCKE

Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Tags: fathers


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

Second Treatise of Civil Government

Tags: tyranny


Beware how in making the portraiture thou breakest the pattern: for divinity maketh the love of ourselves the pattern; the love of our neighbours but the portraiture.

JOHN LOCKE

"Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature", The Conduct of the Understanding: Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political


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

JOHN LOCKE

Some Thoughts Concerning Education


He that denies any of the doctrines that Christ has delivered, to be true, denies him to be sent from God, and consequently to be the Messiah; and so ceases to be a Christian.

JOHN LOCKE

The Reasonableness of Christianity

Tags: Jesus Christ


He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.

JOHN LOCKE

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Tags: words


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

JOHN LOCKE

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Tags: thinking


Some men are remarked for pleasantness in raillery; others for apologues and apposite diverting stories. This is apt to be taken for the effect of pure nature, and that the rather, because it is not got by rules, and those who excel in either of them, never purposely set themselves to the study of it, as an art to be learnt. But yet it is true, that at first some lucky hit, which took with somebody, and gained him commendation, encouraged him to try again, inclined his thoughts and endeavours that way, till at last he insensibly got a facility in it, without perceiving how; and that is attributed wholly to nature, which was much more the effect of use and practice.

JOHN LOCKE

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding


God is the place of spirits, as spaces are the places of bodies.

JOHN LOCKE

"An Examination of P. Malebranche's Opinion of Seeing All Things in God", Philosophical Works

Tags: God


Hunting after arguments to make good one side of a question, and wholly to neglect and refuse those which favor the other side ... [is] willfully to misguide the understanding; and is so far from giving truth its due value, it wholly debases it.

JOHN LOCKE

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Tags: questions


If the Gospel and the Apostles may be credited, no man can be a Christian without charity, and without that faith which works, not by force, but by love.

JOHN LOCKE

Letters Concerning Toleration

Tags: charity


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

JOHN LOCKE

Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Tags: understanding


Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.

JOHN LOCKE

"Of Great Place", The Conduct of the Understanding: Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political


The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others.

JOHN LOCKE

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Tags: belief


The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities.

JOHN LOCKE

"Of Great Place", The Conduct of the Understanding: Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political


The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have, and therefore should be secured, because they seldom return again.

JOHN LOCKE

letter to Mr. Samuel Bold, May 16, 1699

Tags: thought