John Locke Quotes

Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.

Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others

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.

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

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.

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.

Consciousness is the perception of what passes in man’s own mind.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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