Top 200 John Locke Quotes (2025 Update)

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

— John Locke

Featured in: Quotes About Books And Reading, Education Quotes, Knowledge Quotes

2. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”

— John Locke

3. “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

Featured in: Learning Quotes, Enlightenment Quotes, Knowledge Quotes, Teacher Quotes

4. “Struggle is nature’s way of strengthening it.”

— John Locke

Featured in: Struggle Quotes

5. “Logic is the anatomy of thought.”

— John Locke

Featured in: Math Quotes

6. “What worries you, masters you.”

— John Locke

7. “Where there is no law there is no freedom.”

— John Locke

Featured in: Quotes on Liberty, Principles And Laws

8. “Curiosity in children is but an appetite for knowledge.”

— John Locke

Featured in: Curiosity Quotes, Quotes About Childhood

9. “The discipline of desire is the background of character.”

— John Locke

10. “With books we stand on the shoulders of giants.”

— John Locke

Featured in: Book Quotes

11. “This is my destiny – I’m supposed to do this, dammit! Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do!”

— John Locke

12. “All wealth is the product of labor.”

— John Locke

13. “Revolt is the right of the people.”

— John Locke

14. “The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone.”

— John Locke

15. “Who are we to tell anyone what they can or can’t do?”

— John Locke

16. “Justice and truth are the common ties of society.”

— John Locke

Featured in: Justice Quotes

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

Featured in: Reading Quotes

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

— John Locke

21. “I have no reason to suppose that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away everything else.”

— John Locke

22. “There are two sides, two players. One is light, the other is dark.”

— John Locke

23. “A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

25. “Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature.”

— John Locke

26. “Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses.”

— John Locke

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

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

— John Locke

28. “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.”

— John Locke

29. “I am sure, zeal or love for truth can never permit falsehood to be used in the defense of it.”

— John Locke

30. “That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art.”

— John Locke

31. “Curiosity in children is but an appetite for knowledge. The great reason why children abandon themselves wholly to silly pursuits and trifle away their time insipidly is because they find their curiosity balked, and their inquiries neglected.”

— John Locke

32. “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

33. “Don’t let the things you don’t have prevent you from using what you do have.”

— John Locke

34. “Mathematical proofs, like diamonds, are hard and clear, and will be touched with nothing but strict reasoning.”

— John Locke

35. “How long have you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?”

— John Locke

36. “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.”

— John Locke

37. “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it.”

— John Locke

38. “The great art to learn much is to undertake a little at a time.”

— John Locke

39. “In the beginning, all the world was America.”

— John Locke

Featured in: Patriotic Quotes

40. “The most precious of all possessions is power over ourselves.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

42. “Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind upon the receipt of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge.”

— John Locke

43. “Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.”

— John Locke

44. “Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”

— John Locke

45. “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.”

— John Locke

46. “Consciousness is the perception of what passes in man’s own mind.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

48. “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.”

— John Locke

49. “He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.”

— John Locke

50. “The business of education is not to make the young perfect in any one of the sciences, but so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them – capable of any, when they shall apply themselves to it.”

— John Locke