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John Locke Quotes about Liberty

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I have no reason to suppose that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away everything else.

I have no reason to suppose that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away everything else.

John Locke
Second Amendment, Liberty, Reason
John Locke, David Wootton (1993). “Locke: Political Writings”, p.270, Hackett Publishing

Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others

John Locke
Liberty, Violence, Restraint
John Locke (1821). “Two treatises of government”, p.234

Where there is no law there is no freedom.

John Locke
Freedom, Law, Liberty
John Locke (1821). “Two treatises of government”, p.234

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society and made by the legislative power vested in it and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man.

John Locke
Men, Rules To Live By, Liberty
1681 Second Treatise on Civil Government (published anonymously1690).

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
Men, Self, Liberty
John Locke (1813). “The Conduct of the Understanding: With Sketches of the Lives of Locke and Bacon”, p.128

..every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. .... The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property.

John Locke
Men, Hands, Liberty
Second Treatise of Civil Government ch. 9, sec. 124 (1690)

There cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason. Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.

John Locke
Men, People, Liberty

The necessity of pursuing true happiness is the foundation of all liberty- Happiness, in its full extent, is the utmost pleasure we are capable of.

John Locke
Happiness, Liberty, Foundation

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
Thinking, Mad, Liberty

And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of anybody, even of their legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish, or so wicked, as to lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties of the subject.

John Locke
Community, Design, Liberty
John Locke (2009). “The Second Treatise on Civil Government”, p.77, Prometheus Books

If you punish him for what he sees you practise yourself, he... will be apt to interpret it the peevishness and arbitrary imperiousness of a father, who, without any ground for it, would deny his son the liberty and pleasure he takes himself.

John Locke
Father, Son, Liberty
John Locke (1727). “The works of John Locke ...”, p.27

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