John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRSwas an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth29 August 1632
John Locke quotes about
We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.
How long have you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?
If by gaining knowledge we destroy our health, we labour for a thing that will be useless in our hands.
Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches.
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.
Where there is no property there is no injustice.
Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.
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.
All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.
Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.
The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.
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.
Our Business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.
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.