James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Locke
Children generally hate to be idle; all the care is then that their busy humour should be constantly employed in something of use to them.
Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and reflection must finish him.
Endeavour not to settle too many habits at once, lest by variety you confound them, and so perfect none.
Every sect, as far as reason will help it, gladly uses it; when it fails them, they cry out it is matter of faith, and above reason.
Fallacies we are apt to put upon ourselves by taking words for things.
Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.
Fashion is, for the most part, nothing but the ostentation of riches.
Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.
God, when He makes the prophet, does not unmake the man.
Good qualities are the substantial riches of the mind, but it is good-breeding that sets them off to advantage.
He that takes away reason to make way for revelation puts out the light of both.
He that will have his son have a respect for him must have a great reverence for his son.
He that, by often arguing against his own sense, imposes falsehoods on others, is not far from believing them himself.
If we will disbelieve everything because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish because he had no wings.
Kind words prevent a good deal of that perverseness which rough and imperious usage often produces in generous minds.
Knowing is seeing.
Knowledge being to be had only of visible and certain truth, error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment, giving assent to that which is not true.
Labour for labour’s sake is against nature.
Little ones are taught to be proud of their clothes before they can put them on.
Man should let alone other’s prejudices and examine his own.
Nobody contents himself with rough diamonds, or wears them so. When polished and set, then they give a lustre.
Nothing is so beautiful to the eye as truth is to the mind; nothing so deformed and irreconcilable to the understanding as a lie.
Pleasant tastes depend, not on the things themselves, but their agreeableness to this or that particular palate.
Pound an almond, and the clear white colour will be altered into a dirty one, and the sweet taste into an oily one.
Practice must settle the habit of doing without reflecting on the rule.
Reading furnishes us only with the materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours.
Riches do not consist in having more gold and silver, but in having more in proportion than our neighbours.
Strong conceit, like a new principle, carries all easily with it, when yet above common-sense.
The best way to come to truth is to examine things as they really are, and not to conclude they are, as we have been taught by others to imagine.
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
The pain that any one actually feels is still of all others the worst.
There is often a complaint of want of parts, when the fault lies in a want of a due improvement of them.
True fortitude I take to be the quiet possession of a man’s self, and an undisturbed doing his duty, whatever evil besets him or danger lies in his way.
Truth scarce ever yet carried it by vote anywhere at its first appearance.
Truth, like gold, is not the less so for being newly brought out of the mine.
We are all a kind of chameleons, taking our hue, the hue of our moral character, from those who are about us.
We are born with faculties and powers capable almost of anything, such, at least, as might carry us further than can easily be imagined; but it is only the exercise of those powers that gives us ability and skill in anything, and leads us towards perfection.
We ought not, in general, to take the opinions of others upon trust, but to reason and judge for ourselves.
Who is there almost, whose mind at some time or other, love or anger, fear or grief, has not so fastened to some clog that it could not turn itself to any other object?
Whoever sinks his vessel by overloading it, though it be with gold, and silver, and precious stones, will give his owner but an ill account of his voyage.