Quotes By John Locke

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

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.

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

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

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

Where there is no property there is no injustice.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.