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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
Liberty
Cannot
Power
Delegate
Government
Unlawful
Anything
Delegates
Would
Libertarianism
People
Individualism
Libertarian

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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.
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There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.
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Who hath a prospect of the different state of perfect happiness or misery that attends all men after this life, depending on their behavior, the measures of good and evil that govern his choice are mightily changed.
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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 cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason. Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.
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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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There cannot be greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse.
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I pretend not to teach, but to inquire.
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If punishment reaches not the mind and makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
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Many a good poetic vein is buried under a trade, and never produces any thing for want of improvement.
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Struggle is nature's way of strengthening it
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How then shall they have the play-games you allow them, if none must be bought for them? I answer, they should make them themselves, or at least endeavour it, and set themselves about it. ...And if you help them where they are at a stand, it will more endear you to them than any chargeable toys that you shall buy for them.
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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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Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.
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The chief art of learning is to attempt but a little at a time.
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Defects and weakness in men's understandings, as well as other faculties, come from want of a right use of their own minds I am apt to think, the fault is generally mislaid upon nature, and there is often a complaint of want of parts, when the fault lies in want of a due improvement of them.
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The only thing we are naturally afraid of is pain, or loss of pleasure. And because these are not annexed to any shape, colour, or size of visible objects, we are frighted of none of them, till either we have felt pain from them, or have notions put into us that they will do us harm.
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The business of education is not to make the young perfect in any one of the sciences, but so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them - capable of any, when they shall apply themselves to it.
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Certain subjects yield a general power that may be applied in any direction and should be studied by all.
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The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.
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