John Locke

I shall not take railing for arguments

The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires and art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own object.

Men’s happiness or misery is most part of their own making.

God, having designed man for a sociable creature, made him not only with an inclination, and under a necessity to have fellowship with those of his own kind, but furnished him also with language, which was to be the great instrument and common tie of society.

And thus Sir Robert was an author before he writ his book; not in act, it is true, but in habit

Our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.

He that can sleep soundly, takes the cordial; and it matters not whether it be on a soft bed or the hard boards.

When therefore we quit particulars, the generals that rest are only creatures of our own making; their general nature being nothing but the capacity they are put into, by the understanding, of signifying or representing many particulars.

If all men are not, as I think they are, naturally equal, I am sure all slaves are

Justice and truth are the common ties of society; and therefore even outlaws and robbers, who break with all the world besides, must keep faith and rules of equity amongst themselves; or else they cannot hold together.

Thus parents, by humouring and cockering them when little, corrupt the principles of nature in their children, and wonder afterwards to taste the bitter waters, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.

For what greater connexion in nature has the idea of a man than the idea of a sheep with killing, that this is made a particular species of action, signified by the word MURDER, and the other not?

What father of a thousand, when he begets a child, thinks farther than the satisfying his present appetite?

And had men leisure, parts, and will, who is there almost that dare shake the foundations of all his past thoughts and actions, and endure to bring upon himself the shame of having been a long time wholly in mistake and error?

For extravagant young fellows, that have liveliness and spirit, come sometimes to be set right, and so make able and great men; but dejected minds, timorous and tame, and low spirits, are hardly ever to be raised, and very seldom attain to anything.

Though the familiar use of things about us take off our wonder, yet it cures not our ignorance.

The dens of lions and nurseries of wolves know no such cruelty as this

In the sciences, every one has so much as he really knows and comprehends.

God has stamped certain characters upon men’s minds, which like their shapes, may perhaps be a little mended, but can hardly be totally altered and transformed into the contrary.

Many a man who was pretty well satisfied of the meaning of a text of Scripture, or clause in the code, at first reading, has, by consulting commentators, quite lost the sense of it, and by these elucidations given rise or increase to his doubts, and drawn obscurity upon the place.