John Locke
With books we stand on the shoulders of giants.Collection: Book
Where there is no law there is no freedom.Collection: Freedom
Whoever uses force without Right ... puts himself into a state of War with those, against whom he uses it, and in that state all former Ties are canceled, all other Rights cease, and every one has a Right to defend himself, and to resist the Aggressor.Collection: War
Revolt is the right of the peopleCollection: People
Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and reflection must finish him.Collection: Inspirational
Men's happiness or misery is [for the] most part of their own making.Collection: Men
It is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, to their perfection.Collection: Practice
I pretend not to teach, but to inquire.Collection: Teach
Try all things, hold fast that which is good.Collection: Biblical
The great question which, in all ages, has disturbed mankind, and brought on them the greatest part of their mischiefs ... has been, not whether be power in the world, nor whence it came, but who should have it.Collection: Should Have
The visible mark of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of creation.Collection: Power
Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.Collection: Atheist
The mind is furnished with ideas by experience aloneCollection: Philosophy
Memory is the power to revive again in our minds those ideas which after imprinting have disappeared, or have been laid aside out of sight.Collection: Memories
Reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal father of light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties: revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by God. . . .Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Reading
The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have.Collection: Thinking
If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.Collection: Punishment
A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.Collection: Happiness
There cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason.Collection: Men
In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity.Collection: Law
Mathematical proofs, like diamonds, are hard and clear, and will be touched with nothing but strict reasoning.Collection: Math
We are all a sort of chameleons, that still take a tincture from things near us: nor is it to be wondered at in children, who better understand what they see, than what they hear.Collection: Children
The least and most imperceptible impressions received in our infancy have consequences very important and of long duration.Collection: Long
If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors.Collection: Men
If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much what as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.Collection: Wings
'Tis true that governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit everyone who enjoys a share of protection should pay out of his estate his proportion of the maintenance of it.Collection: Government
Men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, and while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no time to tend their health either of body or mind.Collection: Men
To give a man full knowledge of morality, I would send him to no other book than the New Testament.Collection: Book
The mind being, as I have declared, furnished with a great number of the simple ideas conveyed in by the senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by reflection on its own operations, take notice, also, that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together... which, by inadvertency, we apt afterward to talk of and condier as one simple idea.Collection: Simple
What humanity abhors, custom reconciles and recommends to us.Collection: Humanity
Nobody is made anything by hearing of rules, or laying them up in his memory; practice must settle the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule; and you may as well hope to make a good painter, or musician, extempore, by a lecture and instruction in the arts of music and painting, as a coherent thinker, or a strict reasoner, by a set of rules, showing him wherein right reasoning consists.Collection: Art
The greatest part of mankind ... are given up to labor, and enslaved to the necessity of their mean condition; whose lives are worn out only in the provisions for living.Collection: Mean
When Fashion hath once Established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it.Collection: Fashion
This is my destiny — I'm supposed to do this, dammit! Don't tell me what I can and can't do!Collection: Destiny
Whoever has used what means he is capable of, for the informing of himself, with a readiness to believe and obey what shall be taught and prescribed by Jesus, his Lord and King, is a true and faithful subject of Christ s kingdom:;; and cannot be thought to fail in any thing necessary to salvation.Collection: Jesus
If to break loose from the bounds of reason, and to want that restraint of examination and judgment which keeps us from choosing or doing the worst, be liberty, true liberty, madmen and fools are the only freemen: but yet, I think, nobody would choose to be mad for the sake of such liberty, but he that is mad already.Collection: Thinking
For a man's property is not at all secure, though there be good and equitable laws to set the bounds of it, between him and his fellow subjects, if he who commands those subjects, have power to take from any private man, what part he pleases of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks good.Collection: Men
Truth certainly would do well enough, if she were once left to shift for herself...She is not taught by laws, nor has she any need of force, to procure her entrance into the minds of men.Collection: Truth
God is the place of spirits, as spaces are the places of bodies.Collection: Space
I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other.Collection: Lying
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.Collection: Ambition
Inuring children gently to suffer some degrees of pain without shrinking, is a way to gain firmness to their minds, and lay a foundation for courage and resolution in the future part of their lives.Collection: Children
When I had gone through the whole, and saw what a plain, simple, reasonable thing Christianity was, suited to all conditions and capacities; and in the morality of it now, with divine authority, established into a legible law, so far surpassing all that philosophy and human reason had attained to, or could possibly make effectual to all degrees of man kind; I was flattered to think it might be of some use in the world.Collection: Philosophy
Whosoever will list himself under the banner of Christ, must, in the first place and above all things, make war upon his own lusts and vices. It is in vain for any man to usurp the name of Christian, without holiness of life, purity of manners, benignity and meekness of spirit.Collection: Christian
The Indians , whom we call barbarous, observe much more decency and civility in their discourses and conversation, giving one another a fair silent hearing till they have quite done; and then answering them calmly, and without noise or passion. And if it be not so in this civiliz'd part of the world, we must impute it to a neglect in education, which has not yet reform'd this antient piece of barbarity amongst us.Collection: Passion
Where danger shews it self, apprehension cannot, without stupidity, be wanting; where danger is, sense of danger should be; and so much fear as should keep us awake, and excite our attention, industry, and vigour; but not to disturb the calm use of our reason, nor hinder the execution of what that dictates.Collection: Self
Nature never makes excellent things, for mean or no uses: and it is hardly to be conceived, that our infinitely wise Creator, should make so admirable a Faculty, as the power of Thinking, that Faculty which comes nearest the Excellency of his own incomprehensible Being, to be so idlely and uselesly employ'd, at least 1/4 part of its time here, as to think constantly, without remembering any of those Thoughts, without doing any good to it self or others, or being anyway useful to any other part of Creation.Collection: Wise
Laws provide, as much as ispossible that the goods and health of subjects be not injured by the fraud and violence of others. They do not guard them from thenegligence or ill-husbandry of the possessors themselves.Collection: Philosophy