John Locke

“The three great things that govern mankind are reason, passion and superstition. The first governs a few, the two last share the bulk of mankind and possess them in their turns. But superstition most powerfully produces the greatest mischief.”

“Wit and good nature meeting in a fair young lady as they do in you make the best resemblance of an angel that we know; and he that is blessed with the conversation and friendship of a person so extraordinary enjoys all that remains of paradise in this world.”

“But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression.”

“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.”

“Sophistry is only fit to make men more conceited in their ignorance.”

“Discourse of Port de Set with P. & Mr. [blank] at Petit Paris, & the teaching biding to cheat the Hugenots: Nulla fides servanda cum Hereticis, nisi satis validi sunt ad se defendendos [faith need not be kept with heretics].”

“If Papists can be supposed to be as good subjects as others, they may be equally tolerated... If all subjects should be equally countenanced, & imployd by the Prince. the Papist[s] have an equall title.”

“This life affords no solid satisfaction, but in the consciousness of having done well, and the hopes of another life.”

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

“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.”

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

“No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.”

“Preference of vice to virtue, a manifest wrong judgment.”

“The boundaries of the species, whereby men sort them, are made by men.”

“Since sounds have no natural connection with our ideas ... the doubtfulness and uncertainty of their signification ... has its cause more in the ideas they stand for than in any incapacity there is in one sound more than another to signify any idea.”

“He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.”

“He that uses words without any clear and steady meaning, what does he but lead himself and others into errors? And he that designedly does it, ought to be looked on as an enemy to truth and knowledge.”

“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.”

“He that knows anything, knows this, in the first place, that he need not seek long for instances of his ignorance."”

“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.”

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

“Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and ought most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts.”

“All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.”

“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.”

“Reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it”

“Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. Thus no Body has any Right to but himself.”

“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.”

“Government has no other end than the preservation of property.”

“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.”

“If man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom, this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power?”