John Locke

Children (nay, and men too) do most by example.

Let them have what instructions you will, and ever so learned lectures of breeding daily inculcated into them, that which will most influence their carriage will be the company they converse with, and the fashion of those about them.

not to endeavour to settle too many habits at once, lest by variety you confound them, and so perfect none.

keep them to the practice of what you would have grow into a habit with them, by kind words, and gentle admonitions, rather as minding them of what they forget, than by harsh rebukes and chiding, as if they were wilfully guilty.

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.

Thus parents, by humouring and cockering them when little, corrupt the principles of nature in their children, and wonder afterwards to taste the bitter waters, when they themselves have poison'd the fountain.

A sound mind in a sound body, is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.

To this I answer: That force is to be opposed to nothing, but to unjust and unlawful force. Whoever makes any opposition in any other case, draws on himself a just condemnation, both from God and man...

Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.

As usurpation is the exercise of power which another has a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to...

And because it may be too great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons, who have the power of making laws, to have also in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves from …

If man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom, this empire, and subject himself to the …

Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent.

Government has no other end than the preservation of property.

This is to think that men are so foolish that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by polecats or foxes, but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions.

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 laws, where there is no law there is no freedom.

Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. Thus no Body has any Right to but himself.

Freedom of Nature is, to be under no other restraint but the Law of Nature.

A criminal who, having renounced reason ... hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or tyger, one of those wild savage beasts with …

Reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, …

To understand political power aright, and derive from it its original, we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as …

He that will impartially survey the Nations of the World, will find so much of the Governments, Religion, and Manners brought in and continued amongst them by these means, that they will have but little Reverence for the Practices which …

The imagination is always restless and suggests a variety of thoughts, and the will, reason being laid aside, is ready for every extravagant project