117 quotes
He that knows anything, knows this, in the first place, that he need not seek long for instances of his ignorance."
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
You must do nothing before him, which you would not have him imitate.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Whoever goes beyond this measure of assent, it is plain receives not the truth in the love of it; loves not truth for truth's sake, but for some other bye-end.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
He that judges without informing himself to the utmost that he is capable, cannot acquit himself of judging amiss.
Men content themselves with the same words as other people use, as if the very sound necessarily carried the same meaning.
Adam Schaff (1962)
Affectation is an awkward and forced Imitation of what should be genuine and easy, wanting the Beauty that accompanies what is natural.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
The picture of a shadow is a positive thing.
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.
Two Treatises of Government (1689)
He that would seriously set upon the search of truth, ought in the first place to prepare his mind with a love of it. For he that loves it not, will not take much pains to get it; nor be much concerned when he misses it.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
You would think him a very foolish Fellow, that should not value a Vertuous, or a Wise Man, infinitely before a great Scholar.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Children (nay, and men too) do most by example.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
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.
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Government has no other end than the preservation of property.
Two Treatises of Government (1689)
The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom.
Two Treatises of Government (1689)
The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
This life affords no solid satisfaction, but in the consciousness of having done well, and the hopes of another life.
I doubt not, but from self-evident Propositions, by necessary Consequences, as incontestable as those in Mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
The best way to come to truth being to examine things as really they are, and not to conclude they are, as we fancy of ourselves, or have been taught by others to imagine.
The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have, and therefore should be secured, because they seldom return again.
Bred a scholar he made his learning subservient only to the cause of truth.