John Locke (1632–1704) was an English philosopher and political theorist. This founder of British empiricism and political liberalism greatly influenced modern philosophical empiricism and political theory through his writings. He endeavored to focus philosophy on an analysis of the extent and capabilities of the human mind. Two centuries later, the British philosopher John Stuart Mill called Locke the “unquestioned founder of the analytic philosophy of mind.”
In Two Treatises of Government (1690,) Locke justified the Revolution of 1688 by contending that, counter to the theory of the divine right of kings, the authority of rulers has a human origin and is limited. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690,) he negated that any ideas are innate, and argued instead that all knowledge is rooted in experience derived from the senses. He established that it is not possible to know everything about the world and that our inadequate knowledge must be fortified by faith.
Regarded as one of the first of the British empiricists, in the tradition of Francis Bacon, Locke is equally important to social contract theory. His works greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. Locke’s contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory even influenced the United States Declaration of Independence.
Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) argued that religion is a matter for each individual and that churches are voluntary associations. The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695) provoked more controversy than the political works. Some Thoughts concerning Education (1693) argued for a broader syllabus and a more humane attitude towards pupils.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Locke
The Care therefore of every man’s Soul belongs unto himself, and is to be left unto himself. But what if he neglect the Care of his Soul?. I answer, What if he neglects the Care of his Health, or of his Estate, which things are nearlier related to the Government of the Magistrate than the other?. Will the magistrate provide by an express Law, That such an one shall not become poor or sick?. Laws provide, as much as is possible, that the Goods and Health of Subjects be not injured by the Fraud and Violence of others; they do not guard them from the Negligence or Ill-husbandry of the Possessors themselves
—John Locke
Topics: Welfare
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: Humankind, Humanity
Practice conquers the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule.
—John Locke
Topics: Habits, Habit
Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.
—John Locke
Topics: Virtue
What worries you, masters you.
—John Locke
He that takes away reason to make way for revelation puts out the light of both, and does much the same as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope.
—John Locke
Topics: Reason
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: Goals, Aspirations
One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant.
—John Locke
Topics: Truth
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 visible mark of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of creation.
—John Locke
Topics: Miracles
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
Cunning is the ape of wisdom.
—John Locke
Topics: Cunning
If we rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison.
—John Locke
Topics: Evils
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
Topics: Knowledge, Understanding
No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.
—John Locke
Topics: Experience
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
—John Locke
Topics: Originality, Opinion, Opinions, Change, Failure, Opposition, Strength, Ideas
Kind words prevent a good deal of that perverseness which rough and imperious usage often produces in generous minds.
—John Locke
Topics: Kindness
The great art of learning, is to undertake but little at a time.
—John Locke
Topics: Learning
I attribute the little I know to my not having been ashamed to ask for information, and to my rule of conversing with all descriptions of men on those topics that form their own peculiar professions and pursuits.
—John Locke
Topics: Questions, Learning
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
All the arts of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment.
—John Locke
Repentance is a hearty sorrow for our past misdeeds, and a sincere resolution and endeavor, to the utmost of our power, to conform all our actions to the law of God. It does not consist in one single act of sorrow, but in doing works meet for repentance; in a sincere obedience to the law of Christ for the remainder of our lives.
—John Locke
Topics: Repentance
Curiosity in children is but an appetite for knowledge. One 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
Topics: Curiosity
The works of nature and the works of revelation display religion to mankind in characters so large and visible that those who are not quite blind may in them see and read the first principles and most necessary parts of it and from thence penetrate into those infinite depths filled with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
—John Locke
Topics: Religion
I am apt to think that men find their simple ideas agree, though in discourse they confound one another with different names.
—John Locke
Error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment giving assent to that which is not true.
—John Locke
Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuit prius in sensu:
Nothing is in the understanding, which was not first perceived by some of the senses.
—John Locke
Topics: Perception
Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and reflection must finish him.
—John Locke
Every one is forward to complain of the prejudices that mislead other men and parties, as if he were free, and had none of his own. What now is the cure? No other but this, that every man should let alone others’ prejudices and examine his own.
—John Locke
Topics: Prejudice
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
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