English philosopher (1632-1704)
A king that would not feel his crown too heavy for him, must wear it every day, but if he think it too light, he knoweth not of what metal it is made.
JOHN LOCKE
"Of a King", The Conduct of the Understanding: Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political
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
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
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
The stage is more beholding to love, than the life of man; for as to the stage, love is even matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief; sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury.
JOHN LOCKE
"Of Love", The Conduct of the Understanding: Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political
To understand political power aright, and derive from it its original, we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.
JOHN LOCKE
Second Treatise of Government
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.
JOHN LOCKE
First Treatise of Government
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
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
If to break loose from the bounds of reason, and to want that restraint of examination and judgment which keeps us from choosing or doing the worst, be liberty, true liberty, madmen and fools are the only freemen: but yet, I think, nobody would choose to be mad for the sake of such liberty, but he that is mad already.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself: and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own object.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
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.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.
JOHN LOCKE
Second Treatise of Government
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
Slavery is so vile and miserable an Estate of Man, and so directly opposite to the generous Temper and Courage of our Nation; that 'tis hardly to be conceived, that an Englishman, much less a Gentleman, should plead for't.
JOHN LOCKE
Second Treatise of Government
For it will be very difficult to persuade men of sense that he who with dry eyes and satisfaction of mind can deliver his brother to the executioner to be burnt alive, does sincerely and heartily concern himself to save that brother from the flames of hell in the world to come.
JOHN LOCKE
Letters Concerning Toleration
For those who either perceive but dully, or retain the ideas that come into their minds but ill, who cannot readily excite or compound them, will have little matter to think on.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
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
When we know our own strength, we shall the better know what to undertake with hopes of success; and when we have well surveyed the powers of our own minds, and made some estimate what we may expect from them, we shall not be inclined either to sit still, and not set our thoughts on work at all, in despair of knowing anything; nor on the other side, question everything, and declaim all knowledge, because some things are not to be understood.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Thus parents, by humouring and cockering them when little, corrupt the principles of nature in their children, and wonder afterwards to taste the bitter waters, when they themselves have poison'd the fountain.
JOHN LOCKE
Some Thoughts Concerning Education