John Locke

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.

— John Locke

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.

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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.

— John Locke

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.

— John Locke

Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.

— John Locke

Practice conquers the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule.

— John Locke

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.

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

Vague and mysterious forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard or misapplied words with little or no meaning have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance and hindrance of true knowledge.

— John Locke

Till a man can judge whether they be truths or not, his understanding is but little improved, and thus men of much reading, though greatly learned, but may be little knowing.

— John Locke

Logic is the anatomy of thought.

— John Locke

The visible mark of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of creation.

— John Locke

To give a man full knowledge of morality, I would send him to no other book than the New Testament.

— John Locke

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.

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

Where there is no property there is no injustice.

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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.

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

— John Locke