John Locke

Reading furnishes the mind only with material for knowledge it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

Till a man can judge whether they be truths or not, his understanding is but little improved, and thus men of much reading, though greatly learned, but may be little knowing.

Practice conquers the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule.

Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.

The improvement of understanding is for two ends first, our own increase of knowledge secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.

To prejudge other men's notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eyes.

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.

Where there is no property there is no injustice.

Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches.

There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men, who talk in a road, according to the notions they have borrowed and the prejudices of their education.

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

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.

Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.

What worries you, masters you.

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

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

One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant.

Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.

It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean.

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.

To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.

Logic is the anatomy of thought.

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.