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LOCKE, John Quotes
(1632-1704), English philosopher
The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.
Affectation in any part of our carriage is but the lighting up of a candle to show our defects, and never fails to make us taken notice of, either as wanting in sense or sincerity.
An ill argument introduced with deference will procure more credit than the profoundest science with a rough, insolent, and noisy management.
The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men.—It has God for its author; salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter.—It is all pure, all sincere; nothing too much; nothing wanting.
Children generally hate to be idle.—All the care then should be, that their busy humor should be constantly employed in something that is of use to them.
If we rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison.
There cannot be a greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse.
Virtue and talents, though allowed their due consideration, yet are not enough to procure a man a welcome wherever he comes. Nobody contents himself with rough diamonds, or wears them so. When polished and set, then they give a lustre.
Cunning is the ape of wisdom.
Curiosity in children is but an appetite for knowledge. One great reason why children abandon themselves wholly to silly pursuits and trifle away their time insipidly is, because they find their curiosity balked, and their inquiries neglected.
I am apt to think that men find their simple ideas agree, though in discourse they confound one another with different names.
Some persons depress their own minds, despond at the first difficulty, and conclude that making any progress in knowledge, further than serves their ordinary business, is above their capacity.
He that has found a way to keep a child's spirit easy, active, and free, and yet at the same time to restrain him from many things he has a mind to, and to draw him to things that are uneasy to him, has, in my opinion, got the true secret of education.
Error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment giving assent to that which is not true.
If we rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison.
Fashion is, for the most part, nothing but the ostentation of riches.
Folly consists in drawing of false conclusions from just principles, by which it is distinguished from madness, which draws just conclusions from false principles.
Fortitude I take to be the quiet possession of a man's self, and an undisturbed doing his duty whatever evils beset, or dangers lie in the way.—In itself an essential virtue, it is a guard to every other virtue.
Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and reflection must finish him.
Good qualities are the substantial riches of the mind; but it is good-breeding that sets them off to advantage.
Habits work more constantly and with greater force than reason, which, when we hare most need of it, is seldom fairly consulted, and more rarely obeyed.
The least and most imperceptible impressions received in our infancy have consequences very important and of long duration.—It is with these first impressions as with a river, whose waters we can easily turn at its source; with the same facility we may turn the minds of children to what direction we please.
Kind words prevent a good deal of that perverseness which rough and imperious usage often produces in generous minds.
A taste of every sort of knowledge is necessary to form the mind, and is the only way to give the understanding its due improvement to the full extent of its capacity.
I attribute the little I know to my not having been ashamed to ask for information, and to my rule of conversing with all descriptions of men on those topics that form their own peculiar professions and pursuits.
Till a man can judge whether they be truths or no, his understanding is but little improved, and thus men of much reading, though greatly learned, but may be little knowing.
The great art of learning, is to undertake but little at a time.
Syllogism is of necessary use, even to the lovers of truth, to show them the fallacies that are often concealed in florid, witty, or involved discourses.
General observations drawn from particulars are the jewels of knowledge, comprehending great store in a little room.
A miracle I take to be a sensible operation, which being above the comprehension of the spectator, and in his opinion contrary to the established course of nature, is taken by him to be divine.
To give a man a full knowledge of true morality, I would send him to no other book than the New Testament.
General observations drawn from particulars are the jewels of knowledge, comprehending great store in a little room.
Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.
The distinguishing characters of the face, and the lineaments of the body, grow more plain and visible with time and age; but the peculiar physiognomy of the mind is most discernible in children.
Every one is forward to complain of the prejudices that mislead other men and parties, as if he were free, and had none of his own. What now is the cure? No other but this, that every man should let alone others' prejudices and examine his own.
If punishment makes not the will supple it hardens the offender.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. So far as we apprehend and see the connection of ideas, so far it is ours; without that it is so much loose matter floating in our brain.
He that takes away reason to make way for revelation puts out the light of both, and does much the same as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope.
He that will make a good use of any part of his life must allow a large part of it to recreation.
Repentance is a hearty sorrow for our past misdeeds, and a sincere resolution and endeavor, to the utmost of our power, to conform all our actions to the law of God. It does not consist in one single act of sorrow, but in doing works meet for repentance; in a sincere obedience to the law of Christ for the remainder of our lives.
Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.
All the arts of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment.
Let not any one say that he cannot govern his passions, nor hinder them from breaking out and carrying him to action; for what he can do before a prince or a great man, he can do alone, or in the presence of God if he will.
The most precious of all possessions, is power over ourselves; power to withstand trial, to bear suffering, to front danger; power over pleasure and pain; power to follow our convictions, however resisted by menace and scorn; the power of calm reliance in scenes of darkness and storms. He that has not a mastery over his inclinations; he that knows not how to resist the importunity of present pleasure or pain, for the sake of what reason tells him is fit to be done, wants the true principle of virtue and industry, and is in danger of never being good for anything.
Every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has a right to but himself.
We are a kind of chameleons, taking our hue—the hue of our moral character, from those who are about us.
As there is a partiality to opinions, which is apt to mislead the understanding, so there is also a partiality to studies, which is prejudicial to knowledge.
Truth, whether in or out of fashion, is the measure ef knowledge, and the business of the understanding; whatsoever is beside that, however authorized by consent, or recommended by rarity, is nothing but ignorance, or something worse.
The improvement of the understanding is for two ends; first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.
No one knows what strength of parts he has till he has tried them.—And of the understanding one may most truly say, that its force is generally greater than it thinks till it is put to it.—Therefore the proper remedy is, to set the mind to work, and apply the thoughts vigorously to the business, for it holds in the struggles of the mind, as in those of war, that to think we shall conquer is to conquer.
All the talk of history is of nothing almost but fighting and killing, and the honor and renown which are bestowed on conquerors, who, for the most part are mere butchers of mankind, mislead growing youth, who, by these means, come to think slaughter the most laudable business of mankind, and the most heroic of virtues.
Wit consists in assembling, and putting together with quickness, ideas in which can be found resemblance and congruity, by which to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy.
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
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