"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves."
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Quote collection
John Locke quotes (page 4 of 15)
296 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art."
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"A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else."
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"With books we stand on the shoulders of giants."
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"Vague and mysterious forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard or misapplied words with little or no meaning have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance and hindrance of true knowledge."
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"Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues."
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"The Church which taught men not to keep faith with heretics, had no claim to toleration."
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"He that will make good use of any part of his life must allow a large part of it to recreation."
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"There are two sides, two players. One is light, the other is dark."
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"Let us suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience."
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"Whoever uses force without Right ... puts himself into a state of War with those, against whom he uses it, and in that state all former Ties are canceled, all other Rights cease, and every one has a Right to defend himself, and to resist the Aggressor."
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"If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors."
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"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."
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"Success in fighting means not coming at your opponent the way he wants to fight you."
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"Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state."
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"He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood."
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"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."
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"[I]t being reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a Wolf or a lion."
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"A criminal who, having renounced reason ... hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or tiger, one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security."
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"Thirdly, the supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the people should have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that, by entering into society, which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an absurdity for any man to own."
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