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
Earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest batteries; and though, perhaps, sometimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, keep out the enemy, truth, that would captivate or disturbe them.
Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.
Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip.
What worries you, masters you.
A criminal who, having renounced reason ... hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or tiger, one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security.
The most precious of all possessions is power over ourselves.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
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.
Who lies for you will lie against you.
There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
The power of the legislative being derived from the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to make legislators, the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands.
[Individuals] have a right to defend themselves and recover by force what by unlawful force is taken from them.