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The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.

John Locke

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John Locke
Age: 72 †
Born: 1632
Born: August 29
Died: 1704
Died: October 28
Philosopher
Physician
Politician
Writer
Wrington
Somerset
People
Individualism
Libertarian
Liberty
Cannot
Power
Delegate
Government
Unlawful
Anything
Delegates
Would
Libertarianism

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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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Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.
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Children (nay, and men too) do most by example.
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Where there is no property there is no injustice.
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Every man carries about him a touchstone, if he will make use of it, to distinguish substantial gold from superficial glitterings, truth from appearances. And indeed the use and benefit of this touchstone, which is natural reason, is spoiled and lost only by assuming prejudices, overweening presumption, and narrowing our minds.
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It is vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving wherein men find pleasure to be deceived.
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There cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason.
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It is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, to their perfection.
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Men's happiness or misery is [for the] most part of their own making.
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Not time is the measure of movement but: ...each constant periodic appearance of ideas.
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The Legislative cannot transfer the Power of Making Laws to any other hands. For it being but a delegated Power from the People, they who have it, cannot pass it over to others. The People alone can appoint the Form of the Commonwealth, which is by Constituting the Legislative, and appointing in whose hands that shall be.
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It is one thing to show a man that he is in an error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.
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Understanding like the eye whilst it makes us see and perceive all things, takes no notice of itself and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own subject.
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Moral laws are set as a curb and restraint to these exorbitant desires, which they cannot be but by rewards and punishments, that will over-balance the satisfaction any one shall propose to himself in the breach of the law.
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Reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal father of light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties: revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by God. . . .
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When ideas float in our mind, without any reflection or regard of the understanding, it is that which the French call reverie.
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The greatest part of mankind ... are given up to labor, and enslaved to the necessity of their mean condition whose lives are worn out only in the provisions for living.
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In the discharge of thy place set before thee the best examples for imitation is a globe of precepts.
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The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, into which a young gentleman should be enter'd by degrees, as he can bear it and the earlier the better, so he be in safe and skillful hands to guide him.
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He that would seriously set upon the search of truth, ought in the first place to prepare his mind with a love of it. For he that loves it not, will not take much pains to get it nor be much concerned when he misses it.
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