44 Great John Locke Quotes on Government, Life, and Principles

John Locke, widely known as the Father of Classical Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers.

His work had a great impact on the development of epistemology and political philosophy. John Locke contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.

John Locke Quotes on Government

Other Famous John Locke Quotes

A sound mind in a sound body is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.

All mankind being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.

All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.

All wealth is the product of labor.

An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards.

Anyone reflecting upon the thought he has of the delight, which any present or absent thing is apt to produce in him, has the idea we call love.

As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears.

Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.

Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.

Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches.

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

I attribute the little I know to my not having been ashamed to ask for information, and to my rule of conversing with all descriptions of men on those topics that form their own peculiar professions and pursuits.

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.

It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach.

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.

It is one thing to show a man that he is in an error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.

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 deeds disguise us. People need endless time to try on their deeds, until each knows the proper deeds for him to do. But every day, every hour, rushes by. There is no time.

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.

Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.

The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its author; salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure.

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good.

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.

The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.

There cannot be greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse.

There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.

Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.

To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.

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.

We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.

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.

What worries you, masters you.

Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.

Where there is no property there is no injustice.