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
When I had gone through the whole, and saw what a plain, simple, reasonable thing Christianity was, suited to all conditions and capacities; and in the morality of it now, with divine authority, established into a legible law, so far surpassing all that philosophy and human reason had attained to, or could possibly make effectual to all degrees of man kind; I was flattered to think it might be of some use in the world.
The mind being, as I have declared, furnished with a great number of the simple ideas conveyed in by the senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by reflection on its own operations, take notice, also, that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together... which, by inadvertency, we apt afterward to talk of and condier as one simple idea.
If we trace the progress of our minds, and with attention observe how it repeats, adds together, and unites its simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, it will lead us farther than at first, perhaps, we should have imagined.
The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made.
Reading furnishes the mind only with material for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
We just want to show the people of this town what the benefits are.
Nobody is going to let anybody's children play on something that is unsafe. There is just no way.
Nature never makes excellent things for mean or no uses.
Man... hath by nature a power .... to preserve his property - that is, his life, liberty, and estate - against the injuries and attempts of other men.
There being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species should be equal amongst one another without subordination or subjection
No man's knowledge here can go beyond experience. (An Essay concerning Human Understanding.)
It is so vital to everybody who has a stake in the downtown. It is vital to anyone who lives here. It is going to put us on the map.
Our Savior's great rule, that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, is such a fundamental truth for the regulating of human society, that, by that alone, one might without difficulty determine all the cases and doubts in social morality.
If punishment makes not the will supple it hardens the offender