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| John Locke
A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world. All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it. All wealth is the product of labor. An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; a villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards. And reason ... teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears. Crooked things may be as stiff and unflexible as straight: and men may be as positive in error as in truth. Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him. Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself. Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches. Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues. Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided. Government has no other end than the preservation of property. 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. I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts. I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment. If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly. It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach. 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. It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth. New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience. 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. Our deeds disguise us. People need endless time to try on their deeds, until each knows the proper deeds for him to do. But every day, every hour, rushes by. There is no time. Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip. Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. Reason is natural revelation. Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding. The discipline of desire is the background of character. The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good. The end of law is, not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it. The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves. The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property. There cannot be greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse. 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. This power to act according to discretion for the public good, without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it, is that which is called prerogative. Though the familiar use of the Things about us, takes off our Wonder; yet it cures not our Ignorance. 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. 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. 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. To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom. We are a kind of Chameleons, taking our hue – the hue of our moral character, from those who are about us. 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. Whatsoever ... (man) removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing. |
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