John Locke Quotes: Memorable Sayings About Government and Life

Liputan6.com, Jakarta - Words have the power to change the world. John Locke quotes are a good example of this. His ideas about freedom and government shaped how many countries are run today. People still read and share his words because they carry a clear and strong message that is relevant even now.

John Locke was a thinker and writer from England who lived in the 1600s. He believed that all people are equal and deserve basic rights. John Locke quotes help us understand his ideas about life, freedom, and fair government. His work influenced many leaders and documents around the world.

In this article, you will find some of the best John Locke quotes on life and government. These words have inspired many people over the years. We hope they give you a new way to think about freedom, fairness, and the role of government in everyday life.

1. "The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts."

2. "Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and reflection must finish him."

3. "Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip."

4. "The discipline of desire is the background of character."

5. "The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it."

6. "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."

7. "All wealth is the product of labor."

8. "Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain."

9. "Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues."

10. "No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience."

1. "Wherever the law ends, tyranny begins."

2. "Government has no other end than the preservation of property."

3. "The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom."

4. "Government is not a paternal authority over the citizens, but a mutual agreement among them."

5. "Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."

6. "The power of the legislative being derived from the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to make legislators, the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands."

7. "The ruling power ought to govern by declared and received laws, and not by extemporary dictates and undetermined resolutions."

8. "The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves."

9. "Governments exist by the consent of the governed."

10. "The end of government is the good of mankind."

11. "The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands, for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others."

12. "The legislative power is the supreme authority in every commonwealth, and the legislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it."

13. "The power that every individual gave the society when he entered into it, can never revert to the individuals again, as long as the society lasts, but will always remain in the community."

1. "Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours."

2. "The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good."

3. "Revolt is the right of the people."

4. "We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us."

5. "The necessity of pursuing happiness is the foundation of liberty."

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

7. "The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions."

8. "There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men."

9. "The vanity and extravagance of desires which men indulge at present would scarce have any bounds or limits, if all the seeming good, which is the object of them, were as soon to vanish as this is."

10. "All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions."