English philosopher (1632-1704)
The law of faith, being a covenant of free grace, God alone can appoint what shall be necessarily believed by everyone whom He will justify. What is the faith which He will accept and account for righteousness, depends wholly on his good pleasure. For it is of grace, and not of right, that this faith is accepted. And therefore He alone can set the measures of it: and what he has so appointed and declared is alone necessary. Nobody can add to these fundamental articles of faith; nor make any other necessary, but what God himself hath made, and declared to be so. And what these are which God requires of those who will enter into, and receive the benefits of the new covenant, has already been shown. An explicit belief of these is absolutely required of all those to whom the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached, and salvation through his name proposed.
JOHN LOCKE
The Reasonableness of Christianity
The greatest part of mankind ... are given up to labor, and enslaved to the necessity of their mean condition; whose lives are worn out only in the provisions for living.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
JOHN LOCKE
dedicatory epistle, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man; insomuch, that if it issue not towards men, it will take unto other living creatures; as it is seen in the Turks, cruel people, who, nevertheless, are kind to beasts, and give alms to dogs and birds.
JOHN LOCKE
"Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature", The Conduct of the Understanding: Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Our Business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
False and doubtful positions, relied upon as unquestionable maxims, keep those who build on them in the dark from truth. Such are usually the prejudices imbibed from education, party, reverence, fashion, interest, et cetera.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
The chief art of learning is to attempt but a little at a time.
JOHN LOCKE
attributed, Day's Collacon
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.
JOHN LOCKE
"Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature", The Conduct of the Understanding: Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political
All rising to great place is by a winding stair; and if there be factions, it is good to side a man's self whilst he is in the rising, and to balance himself when he is placed.
JOHN LOCKE
"Of Great Place", The Conduct of the Understanding: Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political
A man can no more justly make use of another's necessity to force him to become his vassal by withholding that relief God requires him to afford to the wants of his brother, than he that has more strength can seize upon a weaker, master him to his obedience, and with a dagger at his throat, offer him death or slavery.
JOHN LOCKE
Two Treatises of Government
Let not men think there is no truth, but in the sciences that they study, or the books that they read.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Stubbornness and an obstinate disobedience must be mastered with blows.
JOHN LOCKE
attributed, John Locke: Prophet of Common Sense
A criminal who, having renounced reason ... hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or tiger, one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security.
JOHN LOCKE
Second Treatise of Civil Government
All the entertainment and talk of history is nothing almost but fighting and killing: and the honour and renown that is bestowed on conquerors (who for the most part are but the great butchers of mankind) farther mislead growing youth, who by this means come to think slaughter the laudible business of mankind, and the most heroic of virtues.
JOHN LOCKE
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
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
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
Children should from the beginning be bred up in an abhorrence of killing or tormenting any living creature; and be taught not to spoil or destroy any thing, unless it be for the preservation or advantage of some other that is nobler.
JOHN LOCKE
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
Whosoever is found variable, and changeth manifestly without manifest cause, giveth suspicion of corruption: therefore, always, when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, and declare it, together with the reasons that move thee to change.
JOHN LOCKE
"Of Great Place", The Conduct of the Understanding: Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political
It is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, to their perfection.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding