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
Some eyes want spectacles to see things clearly and distinctly: but let not those that use them therefore say nobody can see clearly without them.
Knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes.
For it will be very difficult to persuade men of sense that he who with dry eyes and satisfaction of mind can deliver his brother to the executioner to be burnt alive, does sincerely and heartily concern himself to save that brother from the flames of hell in the world to come.
To prejudge other men's notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eyes.
Our Savior's great rule, that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, is such a fundamental truth for the regulating of human society, that, by that alone, one might without difficulty determine all the cases and doubts in social morality.
We just want to show the people of this town what the benefits are.
There being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species should be equal amongst one another without subordination or subjection
Man... hath by nature a power .... to preserve his property - that is, his life, liberty, and estate - against the injuries and attempts of other men.
Nature never makes excellent things for mean or no uses.
Reading furnishes the mind only with material for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
If punishment makes not the will supple it hardens the offender
It is so vital to everybody who has a stake in the downtown. It is vital to anyone who lives here. It is going to put us on the map.
Every man must some time or other be trusted to himself.
He would be laughed at, that should go about to make a fine dancer out of a country hedger, at past fifty. And he will not have much better success, who shall endeavour, at that age, to make a man reason well, or speak handsomely, who has never been used to it, though you should lay before him a collection of all the best precepts of logic or oratory.