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To understand political power aright, and derive from it its original, we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.

— John Locke Two Treatises of Government (1689)

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More quotes by John Locke

There cannot any one moral Rule be propos'd, whereof a Man may not justly demand a Reason.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

Freedom of Nature is, to be under no other restraint but the Law of Nature.

Two Treatises of Government (1689)

To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.

It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

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