Quotes By John Locke

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where there is no property there is no injustice.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.

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.

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

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.

All wealth is the product of labor.

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.

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

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

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.