Top 200 John Locke Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “He that will have his son have respect for him and his orders, must himself have a great reverence for his son.”

— John Locke

102. “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

103. “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

104. “Knowledge being to be had only of visible and certain truth, error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment, giving assent to that which is not true.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

108. “False and doubtful positions, relied upon as unquestionable maxims, keep those who build on them in the dark from truth. Such are usually the prejudices imbibed from education, party, reverence, fashion, interest, et cetera.”

— John Locke

109. “The least and most imperceptible impressions received in our infancy have consequences very important and of long duration.”

— John Locke

110. “The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.”

— John Locke

111. “It is only practice that improves our minds as well as bodies, and we must expect nothing from our understandings any farther than they are perfected by habits.”

— John Locke

112. “To be rational is so glorious a thing, that two-legged creatures generally content themselves with the title.”

— John Locke

113. “Let not men think there is no truth, but in the sciences that they study, or the books that they read.”

— John Locke

114. “Who hath a prospect of the different state of perfect happiness or misery that attends all men after this life, depending on their behavior, the measures of good and evil that govern his choice are mightily changed.”

— John Locke

115. “He that in the ordinary affairs of life would admit of nothing but direct plain demonstration would be sure of nothing in this world but of perishing quickly.”

— John Locke

116. “What if everything that happened here, happened for a reason?”

— John Locke

117. “But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression.”

— John Locke

118. “I think I may say, that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education.”

— John Locke

119. “Slavery is so vile and miserable an Estate of Man, and so directly opposite to the generous Temper and Courage of our Nation; that ’tis hardly to be conceived, that an Englishman, much less a Gentleman, should plead for’t.”

— John Locke

120. “Since nothing appears to me to give Children so much becoming Confidence and Behavior, and so raise them to the conversation of those above their Age, as Dancing. I think they should be taught to dance as soon as they are capable of learning it.”

— John Locke

121. “He that judges without informing himself to the utmost that he is capable, cannot acquit himself of judging amiss.”

— John Locke

122. “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”

— John Locke

123. “No peace and security among mankind-let alone common friendship-can ever exist as long as people think that governments get their authority from God and that religion is to be propagated by force of arms.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

125. “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.”

— John Locke

126. “The law of faith then, in short, is for every one to believe what God requires him to believe, as a condition of the covenant he makes with him: and not to doubt of the performance of his promises.”

— John Locke

127. “Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others.”

— John Locke

128. “I pretend not to teach, but to inquire.”

— John Locke

129. “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.”

— John Locke

130. “As usurpation is the exercise of power which another has a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to.”

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

132. “He that denies any of the doctrines that Christ has delivered, to be true, denies him to be sent from God, and consequently to be the Messiah; and so ceases to be a Christian.”

— John Locke

133. “Words, in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him who uses them.”

— John Locke

134. “The better to understand the nature, manner, and extent of our knowledge, one thing is carefully to be observed concerning the ideas we have; and that is, that some of them are simple and some complex.”

— John Locke

135. “A man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many truths, which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty.”

— John Locke

136. “Faith is the assent to any proposition not made out by the deduction of reason but upon the credit of the proposer.”

— John Locke

137. “Children have as much mind to show that they are free, that their own good actions come from themselves, that they are absolute and independent, as any of the proudest of you grown men, think of them as you please.”

— John Locke

138. “To ask at what time a man has first any ideas is to ask when he begins to perceive; having ideas and perception being the same thing.”

— John Locke

139. “Every man must some time or other be trusted to himself.”

— John Locke

140. “And when a countryman says the cold freezes water, though the word freezing seems to import some action, yet truly it signifies nothing, but the effect, videlicet that water, that was before fluid, is become hard and consistent, without containing any idea of the action whereby it is done.”

— John Locke

141. “When we find out an Idea, by whose Intervention we discover the Connexion of two others, this is a Revelation from God to us, by the voice of Reason.”

— John Locke

142. “Habits wear more constantly and with greatest force than reason, which, when we have most need of it, is seldom fairly consulted, and more rarely obeyed.”

— John Locke

143. “Man is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out of the common road.”

— John Locke

144. “God is the place of spirits, as spaces are the places of bodies.”

— John Locke

145. “He that takes away Reason to make way for Revelation puts out the Light of both, as one who pokes out eye to see .”

— John Locke

146. “Children generally hate to be idle; all the care then is that their busy humour should be constantly employed in something of use to them.”

— John Locke

147. “Men always forget that human happiness is a disposition of mind and not a condition of circumstances.”

— John Locke

148. “Certain subjects yield a general power that may be applied in any direction and should be studied by all.”

— John Locke

149. “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.”

— John Locke

150. “It is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, to their perfection.”

— John Locke