The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

— John Locke

The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.

— John Locke

The thoughts that often come unsought and as it were dropped into the mind are commonly the most valuable of any we have.

— John Locke

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

— John Locke

This is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in. Those who have read of every thing are thought to understand every thing too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment.

— John Locke

To give a man full knowledge of true morality I would send him to no other book than the New Testament.

— John Locke

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.

— John Locke

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.

— John Locke

Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.

— John Locke

We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.

— John Locke