John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRSwas an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth29 August 1632
Long discourses, and philosophical readings, at best, amaze and confound, but do not instruct children. When I say, therefore, that they must be treated as rational creatures, I mean that you must make them sensible, by the mildness of your carriage, and in the composure even in the correction of them, that what you do is reasonable in you, and useful and necessary for them; and that it is not out of caprichio , passion or fancy, that you command or forbid them any thing.
Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature
The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good.
Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.
The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone
We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.
Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.
Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.
Where there is no property there is no injustice.
Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches.
Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.
No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.
Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.
All wealth is the product of labor.