John Locke Quotes

Mark what 'tis his mind aims at in the question, and not what words he expresses it in: and when you have informed and satisfied him in that, you shall see how his thoughts will enlarge themselves, and how by fit answers he may be led on farther than perhaps you could have imagine. For knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes.

If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no
wings to fly.

But if Adam and Eve (when they were alone in the world) instead of their ordinary night's sleep, had passed the whole twenty-four hours in one continued sleep, the duration of that twenty-four hours had been irrecoverably lost to them, and been for ever left out of their account of time.

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

positive laws of an established government.

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.

This is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in. Those who have read of every thing are thought to understand every thing too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment.

When by these steps he has got resolution enough not to be deterr'd from what he ought to do, by the apprehension of danger; when fear does not, in sudden or hazardous occurrences, decompose his mind, set his body a-trembling, and make him unfit for action, or run away from it, he has then the courage of a rational creature: and such an hardiness we should endeavour by custom and use to bring children to, as proper occasions come in our way.

el disfrute de bienes en ese estado es muy inestable, en zozobra. Ello le hace desear el abandono de una condición que, aunque libre, llena está de temores y continuados peligros; y no sin razón busca y se une en sociedad con otros ya reunidos, o afanosos de hacerlo para esa mutua preservación de sus vidas, libertades y haciendas, a que doy el nombre general de propiedad.

nadie puede transferir a otro más poder del que encerrare en sí, y nadie sobre sí goza de poder absoluto y arbitrario, ni sobre los demás tampoco, que le permitiere destruir su vida o arrebatar la vida o propiedad ajena.

The greatest part of mankind want leisure or capacity for demonstration, nor can carry a train of proofs, which in that way they must always depend upon for conviction, and cannot be required to assent to till they see the demonstration. Wherever they stick, the teachers are always put upon proof, and must clear the doubt by a thread of coherent deductions from the first principle, how long or how intricate soever that be. And you may as soon hope to leave all the day labourers and tradesmen, the spinsters and dairy-maids, perfect mathematicians, as to have them perfect in ethics this way: having plain commands is the sure and only course to bring them to obedience and practice: the greatest part cannot know, and therefore they must believe. And I ask, whether one coming from heaven in the power of God, in full and clear evidence and demonstration of miracles, giving plain and direct rules of morality and obedience, be not likelier to enlighten the bulk of mankind, and set them right in their duties, and bring them to do them, than by reasoning with them from general notions and principles of human reason?

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 evident the mind knows not things immediately, but only by the intervention of the ideas it has of them.

He that will have his son have a respect for him and his orders, must himself have a great reverence for his son. Maxima debetur pueris reverentia [The greatest respect is owed to the children].

since it would always be a sin, in any man of estate, to let his brother perish
for want of affording him relief out of his plenty.