We are born with faculties and powers capable almost of anything, such at least as would carry us farther than can easily be imagined: but it is only the exercise of those powers, which gives us ability and skill in any thing, and leads us towards perfection.
JOHN LOCKEI 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.
More John Locke Quotes
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If you punish him for what he sees you practise yourself, he… will be apt to interpret it the peevishness and arbitrary imperiousness of a father, who, without any ground for it, would deny his son the liberty and pleasure he takes himself.
JOHN LOCKE -
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 -
Curiosity should be as carefully cherish’d in children, as other appetites suppress’d.
JOHN LOCKE -
The Church which taught men not to keep faith with heretics, had no claim to toleration.
JOHN LOCKE -
He that will make good use of any part of his life must allow a large part of it to recreation.
JOHN LOCKE -
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.
JOHN LOCKE -
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 -
A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.
JOHN LOCKE -
[H]e that thinks absolute power purifies men’s blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced to the contrary.
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of anybody, even of their legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish, or so wicked, as to lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties of the subject.
JOHN LOCKE






