Cunning is the ape of wisdom.
—John Locke
Topics: Cunning
There cannot be a greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse.
—John Locke
Topics: Conversation, Communication
The great art of learning is to understand but little at a time.
—John Locke
Topics: Understanding
Wit consists in assembling, and putting together with quickness, ideas in which can be found resemblance and congruity, by which to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy.
—John Locke
Topics: Wit
The distinguishing characters of the face, and the lineaments of the body, grow more plain and visible with time and age; but the peculiar physiognomy of the mind is most discernible in children.
—John Locke
Affectation in any part of our carriage is but the lighting up of a candle to show our defects, and never fails to make us taken notice of, either as wanting in sense or sincerity.
—John Locke
Topics: Affectation
Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others.
—John Locke
Topics: Liberty
Logic is the anatomy of thought.
—John Locke
Topics: Logic
Virtue and talents, though allowed their due consideration, yet are not enough to procure a man a welcome wherever he comes. Nobody contents himself with rough diamonds, or wears them so. When polished and set, then they give a lustre.
—John Locke
I can tell you how to get what you want: You’ve just got to keep a thing in view and go for it and never let your eyes wander to right or left or up or down. And looking back is fatal.
—John Locke
Topics: Aspirations, Goals
Where there is no property there is no injustice.
—John Locke
Topics: Property
I believe half the unhappiness in life comes from people being afraid to go straight at things.
—John Locke
Topics: Happiness, Courage, Action
As there is a partiality to opinions, which is apt to mislead the understanding, so there is also a partiality to studies, which is prejudicial to knowledge.
—John Locke
Topics: Study
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
Topics: Ideas
A miracle I take to be a sensible operation, which being above the comprehension of the spectator, and in his opinion contrary to the established course of nature, is taken by him to be divine.
—John Locke
Topics: Miracles
An ill argument introduced with deference will procure more credit than the profoundest science with a rough, insolent, and noisy management.
—John Locke
Topics: Argument
No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.
—John Locke
Topics: Experience
Affection endeavors to correct natural defects, and has always the laudable aim of pleasing, though it always misses it.
—John Locke
Topics: Affectation
Folly consists in drawing of false conclusions from just principles, by which it is distinguished from madness, which draws just conclusions from false principles.
—John Locke
Vague and mysterious forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard or misapplied words with little or no meaning have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance and hindrance of true knowledge.
—John Locke
Topics: Knowledge
All men are liable to error, and most men are … by passion or interest, under temptation to it.
—John Locke
Topics: Failures, Mistakes
All the talk of history is of nothing almost but fighting and killing, and the honor and renown which are bestowed on conquerors, who, for the most part are mere butchers of mankind, mislead growing youth, who, by these means, come to think slaughter the most laudable business of mankind, and the most heroic of virtues.
—John Locke
Topics: War
The great art of learning, is to undertake but little at a time.
—John Locke
Topics: Learning
Had the King of Spain employed the hands of his people, and his Spanish iron so, he had brought to light but little of that treasure that lay so long hid in the dark entrails of America.
—John Locke
Topics: America
Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided.
—John Locke
Topics: Humanity, Humankind
The discipline of desire is the background of character.
—John Locke
Topics: Discipline, Desires, One liners, Desire
Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.
—John Locke
Topics: Virtue
It is labour indeed that puts the difference on everything.
—John Locke
The great question which, in all ages, has disturbed mankind, and brought on them the greatest part of those mischiefs, which have ruined cities, depopulated countries, and disordered the peace of the world, has been, not whether there be power in the world, not whence it came, but who should have it.
—John Locke
Topics: Power
Fortitude I take to be the quiet possession of a man’s self, and an undisturbed doing his duty whatever evils beset, or dangers lie in the way.—In itself an essential virtue, it is a guard to every other virtue.
—John Locke
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Immanuel Kant Prussian German Philosopher
- Francis Bacon English Philosopher
- David Hume Scottish Philosopher, Historian
- John Stuart Mill English Philosopher, Economist
- Aristotle Ancient Greek Philosopher
- Charles Sanders Peirce American Philosopher
- Bertrand A. Russell British Philosopher, Mathematician
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz German Philosopher, Mathematician
- Roger Bacon English Philosopher
- William of Ockham English Philosopher, Polemicist
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