398 Quotes by John Locke

So that, in effect, religion, which should most distinguish us from beasts, and ought most peculiarly to elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts themselves.

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

Le leggi non vegliano sulla verità delle opinioni ma sulla sicurezza e l'integrità di ciascuno e dello Stato.

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

men’s actions are the best guides to their thoughts

...but since He gave it them for their benefit and the greatest conveniences of life they were capable to draw form it, it cannot be supposed He meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational (and labour was to be his title to it)...

I think I may say, that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education

Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.

But since the great foundation of fear in children is pain, the way to harden and fortify children against fear and danger is to accustom them to suffer pain.