John Locke Quotes
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I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
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Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into the hands... and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and... provide for their own safety and security.
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This is my destiny — I'm supposed to do this, dammit! Don't tell me what I can and can't do!
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[H]e that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced to the contrary.
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Struggle is nature's way of strengthening it.
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If we trace the progress of our minds, and with attention observe how it repeats, adds together, and unites its simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, it will lead us farther than at first, perhaps, we should have imagined.
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Untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but obscurity.
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As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears.
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New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
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As the magistrate has no power to impose by his laws the use of any rites and ceremonies in any church, so neither has he any power to forbid the use of such rites and ceremonies as are already received, approved, and practised by any church; because if he did so, he would destroy the church itself; the end of whose institution is only to worship God with freedom, after its own manner.
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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.
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Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided.
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In the discharge of thy place set before thee the best examples; for imitation is a globe of precepts.
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Reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal father of light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties: revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by God. . . .
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It is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge.
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When I had gone through the whole, and saw what a plain, simple, reasonable thing Christianity was, suited to all conditions and capacities; and in the morality of it now, with divine authority, established into a legible law, so far surpassing all that philosophy and human reason had attained to, or could possibly make effectual to all degrees of man kind; I was flattered to think it might be of some use in the world.
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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.
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And if he be too forward to venture upon his own strength and skill, and perplexity and trouble of a misadventure now and then, that reaches not his innocence, his health, or reputation, may not be an ill way to teach him more caution.
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The Indians , whom we call barbarous, observe much more decency and civility in their discourses and conversation, giving one another a fair silent hearing till they have quite done; and then answering them calmly, and without noise or passion. And if it be not so in this civiliz'd part of the world, we must impute it to a neglect in education, which has not yet reform'd this antient piece of barbarity amongst us.
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Certain subjects yield a general power that may be applied in any direction and should be studied by all.
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The least and most imperceptible impressions received in our infancy have consequences very important and of long duration.
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There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.
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Truly, if the preservation of all mankind, as much as in him lies, were every one's persuasion, as indeed it is every one's duty, and the true principle to regulate our religion, politicks and morality by, the world would be much quieter, and better natur'd than it is.
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'...faith and repentance, i. e. believing Jesus to be the Messiah, and a good life, are the indispensable conditions of the new covenant, to be performed by all those who would obtain eternal life. (The reasonableness, or rather necessity of which, that we may the better comprehend, we must a little look back to what was said in the beginning'