John Locke Quotes - Page 3

Where there is no desire, there will be no industry.

Firmness or stiffness of the mind is not from adherence to truth, but submission to prejudice.

Every man carries about him a touchstone, if he will make use of it, to distinguish substantial gold from superficial glitterings, truth from appearances. And indeed the use and benefit of this touchstone, which is natural reason, is spoiled and lost only by assuming prejudices, overweening presumption, and narrowing our minds.

Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature

There are a thousand ways to Wealth, but only one way to Heaven.

[Individuals] have a right to defend themselves and recover by force what by unlawful force is taken from them.

Success in fighting means not coming at your opponent the way he wants to fight you.

Don't tell me what I can't do!

Whoever uses force without Right ... puts himself into a state of War with those, against whom he uses it, and in that state all former Ties are canceled, all other Rights cease, and every one has a Right to defend himself, and to resist the Aggressor.

It is labour indeed that puts the difference on everything.

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

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

Knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes.

The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have.

If by gaining knowledge we destroy our health, we labour for a thing that will be useless in our hands.

The business of education is not to make the young perfect in any one of the sciences, but so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them - capable of any, when they shall apply themselves to it.

As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears.

Curiosity in children is but an appetite for knowledge.

The body of People may with Respect resist intolerable Tyranny.

Faith is the assent to any proposition not made out by the deduction of reason but upon the credit of the proposer.

God is the place of spirits, as spaces are the places of bodies.

Justice and truth are the common ties of society

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

He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.

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.