Top 200 John Locke Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

53. “Since the great foundation of fear is pain, the way to harden and fortify children against fear and danger is to accustom them to suffer pain.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

55. “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

56. “Personal Identity depends on Consciousness not on Substance.”

— John Locke

57. “Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.”

— John Locke

58. “The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, into which a young gentleman should be enter’d by degrees, as he can bear it; and the earlier the better, so he be in safe and skillful hands to guide him.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

61. “The necessity of pursuing true happiness is the foundation of all liberty- Happiness, in its full extent, is the utmost pleasure we are capable of.”

— John Locke

62. “Our Business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

64. “Who lies for you will lie against you.”

— John Locke

65. “It is labour indeed that puts the difference on everything.”

— John Locke

66. “It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach.”

— John Locke

67. “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.”

— John Locke

68. “The senses at first let in particular Ideas, and furnish the yet empty Cabinet: And the Mind by degrees growing familiar with some of them, they are lodged in the Memory, and Names got to them.”

— John Locke

69. “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.”

— John Locke

70. “Success in fighting means not coming at your opponent the way he wants to fight you.”

— John Locke

71. “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.”

— John Locke

72. “As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivated, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, enclose it from the common.”

— John Locke

73. “Thus parents, by humouring and cockering them when little, corrupt the principles of nature in their children, and wonder afterwards to taste the bitter waters, when they themselves have poison’d the fountain.”

— John Locke

74. “Knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes.”

— John Locke

75. “Untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but obscurity.”

— John Locke

76. “This is to think, that men are so foolish, that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by pole-cats, or foxes; but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions.”

— John Locke

77. “All rising to great place is by a winding stair; and if there be factions, it is good to side a man’s self whilst he is in the rising, and to balance himself when he is placed.”

— John Locke

78. “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.”

— John Locke

79. “Merit and good works is the end of man’s motion; and conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man’s rest; for if a man can be partaker of God’s theatre, he shall likewise be partaker of God’s rest.”

— John Locke

80. “The picture of a shadow is a positive thing.”

— John Locke

81. “MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent.”

— John Locke

82. “Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything.”

— John Locke

83. “There are a thousand ways to Wealth, but only one way to Heaven.”

— John Locke

84. “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

85. “Truth, like gold, is not less so for being newly brought out of the mine.”

— John Locke

86. “God, when he makes the prophet, does not unmake the man.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

88. “When we know our own strength, we shall the better know what to undertake with hopes of success...”

— John Locke

89. “I thought that I had no time for faith nor time to pray, then I saw an armless man saying his Rosary with his feet.”

— John Locke

90. “These two, I say, viz. external material things, as the objects of SENSATION, and the operations of our own minds within, as the objects of REFLECTION, are to me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings.”

— John Locke

91. “Firmness or stiffness of the mind is not from adherence to truth, but submission to prejudice.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

94. “He that will have his son have respect for him and his orders, must himself have a great reverence for his son.”

— John Locke

95. “If by gaining knowledge we destroy our health, we labour for a thing that will be useless in our hands.”

— John Locke

96. “The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have.”

— John Locke

97. “Is it worth the name of freedom to be at liberty to play the fool?”

— John Locke

98. “I find every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly: and where it fails them, they cry out, It is a matter of faith, and above reason.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

100. “He that will make good use of any part of his life must allow a large part of it to recreation.”

— John Locke