John Locke: Quotes about thinking

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”

John Locke

As quoted in "Hand Book : Caution and Counsels" in The Common School Journal Vol. 5, No. 24 (15 December 1843) by Horace Mann, p. 371
Context: This is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in; those who have read of everything, are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that 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.

Deep , Knowledge , Thinking , Reading

“Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.”

John Locke book Two Treatises of Government

Second Treatise of Civil Government, Ch. XIX, sec. 222
Two Treatises of Government (1689)

People , Fear , Thinking

“All the entertainment and talk of history is nothing almost but fighting and killing: and the honour and renown that is bestowed on conquerers (who for the most part are but the great butchers of mankind) farther mislead growing youth, who by this means come to think slaughter the laudible business of mankind, and the most heroick of virtues.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 116
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Context: All the entertainment and talk of history is nothing almost but fighting and killing: and the honour and renown that is bestowed on conquerers (who for the most part are but the great butchers of mankind) farther mislead growing youth, who by this means come to think slaughter the laudible business of mankind, and the most heroick of virtues. By these steps unnatural cruelty is planted in us; and what humanity abhors, custom reconciles and recommends to us, by laying it in the way to honour. Thus, by fashioning and opinion, that comes to be a pleasure, which in itself neither is, nor can be any.

Youth , History , Business , Thinking

“And he who thinks that these two roots of almost all the injustice and contention that so disturb human life, are not early to be weeded out, and contrary habits introduc'd, neglects the proper season to lay the foundations of a good and worthy man.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 105
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Context: Another thing wherein they shew their love of dominion, is, their desire to have things to be theirs: They would have propriety and possession, pleasing themselves with the power which that seems to give, and the right that they thereby have, to dispose of them as they please. He that has not observ's these two humours working very betimes in children, has taken little notice of their actions: And he who thinks that these two roots of almost all the injustice and contention that so disturb human life, are not early to be weeded out, and contrary habits introduc'd, neglects the proper season to lay the foundations of a good and worthy man.

Life , Thinking , Season

“…when I had gone through the whole, and saw what a plain, simple, reason able thing Christianity was, suited to all conditions and capacities; and in the morality of it now, with divine authority, established into a legible law, so far surpassing all that philosophy and human reason had attained to, or could possibly make effectual to all degrees of man kind; I was flattered to think it might be of some use in the world; especially to those, who thought either that there was no need of revelation at all, or that the revelation of our Saviour required the belief of such articles for salvation, which the settled notions, and their way of reasoning in some, and want of understanding in others, made impossible to them. Upon these two topics the objections seemed to turn, which were with most assurance made by deists, against Christianity; but against Christianity misunderstood. It seemed to me, that there needed no more to show them the weakness of their exceptions, but to lay plainly before them the doctrine of our Saviour and his apostles, as delivered in the scriptures, and not as taught by the several sects of Christians.”

John Locke

Preface to the Reader
The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695)

World , Law , Way , Understanding

“Reason, if consulted with, would advise, that their children's time should be spent in acquiring what might be useful to them when they come to be men, rather than to have their heads stuff'd with a deal of trash, a great part whereof they usually never do ('tis certain they never need to) think on again as long as they live: and so much of it as does stick by them they are only the worse for.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 94
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Men , Children , Thinking , Time

“There is no virtue they should be excited to, nor fault they should be kept from, which I do not think they may be convinced of; but it must be by such reasons as their age and understandings are capable of, and those propos'd always in very few and plain words.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 81
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Age , Understanding , Thinking

“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 they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.”

John Locke book Two Treatises of Government

Second Treatise of Government, Ch. II, sec. 4
Two Treatises of Government (1689)

Men , Law , Understanding , Nature

“I do not say this, that I think there should be no difference of opinions in conversation, nor opposition in men's discourses… 'Tis not the owning one's dissent from another, that I speak against, but the manner of doing it.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 145
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Men , Thinking

“The old question will be asked in this matter of prerogative, But who shall be judge when this power is made a right use of? 1 answer: between an executive power in being, with such a prerogative, and a legislative that depends upon his will for their convening, there can be no judge on earth; as there can be none between the legislative and the people, should either the executive, or the legislative, when they have got the power in their hands, design, or go about to enslave or destroy them. The people have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to heaven: for the rulers, in such attempts, exercising a power the people never put into their hands, (who can never be supposed to consent that any body should rule over them for their harm) do that which they have not a right to do. And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that society, any superior power, to determine and give effective sentence in the case; yet they have, by a law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, viz. to judge, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven. And this judgment they cannot part with, it being out of a man's power so to submit himself to another, as to give him a liberty to destroy him; God and nature never allowing a man so to abandon himself, as to neglect his own preservation: and since he cannot take away his own life, neither can he give another power to take it. Nor let any one think, this lays a perpetual foundation for disorder; for this operates not, till the inconveniency is so great, that the majority feel it, and are weary of it, and find a necessity to have it amended. But this the executive power, or wise princes, never need come in the danger of: and it is the thing, of all others, they have most need to avoid, as of all others the most perilous.”

John Locke book Two Treatises of Government

Second Treatise of Government http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr14.htm, Sec. 168
Two Treatises of Government (1689)

Life , Men , God , People

“The softer you find your child is, the more you are to seek occasions, at fit times, thus to harden him. The great art in this is, to begin with what is but very little painful, and to proceed by insensible degrees, when you are playing, and in good humour with him, and speaking well of him: and when you have once got him to think himself made amends for his suffering by the praise is given him for his courage; when he can take pride in giving such marks of his manliness, and can prefer the reputation of being brave and stout, to the avoiding a little pain, or the shrinking under it; you need nor despair in time and by the assistance of his growing reason, to master his timorousness, and mend the weakness of his constitution.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 115
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Pain , Art , Courage , Thinking

“How much education may reconcile young people to pain and sufference, the examples of Sparta do sufficiently shew; and they who have once brought themselves not to think bodily pain the greatest of evils, or that which they ought to stand most in fear of, have made no small advance toward virtue.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 115
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Pain , People , Education , Fear

“Popery so threatens and so nearly surrounds us…every sober man would think it seasonable at this time that all dissenting Protestants should be brought to a good understanding and compliance one with another…I think all Protestants ought now by all ways to be stirred up against them [Catholics] as People that have declared themselves ready by blood, violence, and destruction to ruine our Religion and Government…[they] are nothing but either Enemys in our bowells or spies among us, whilst their General commanders whom they blindly obey declare warr, and an unalterable designe to destroy us.”

John Locke

'Critical Notes Upon Edward Stillingfleet's Mischief and Unreasonableness of Separation' (c. May 1681), quoted in John Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 110

People , Religion , Way , Understanding

“This I think is sufficiently evident, that children generally hate to be idle. All the care then is, that their busy humour should be constantly employ'd in something of use to them; which, if you will attain, you must make what you would have them do a recreation to them, and not a business.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 129
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Hate , Children , Business , Thinking

“As to the papists, 'tis certain that several of their dangerous opinions, which are absolutely destructive of all governments but the pope’s, ought not to be tolerated in propagating those opinions; and whosoever shall spread or publish any of them the magistrate is bound to suppress so far as may be sufficient to restrain it…Papists are not to enjoy the benefit of toleration, because, where they have power, they think themselves bound to deny it to others…It being impossible, either by indulgence or severity, to make papists, whilst papists, friends to your government, being enemies to it both in their principles and interest, and therefore considering them as irreconcilable enemies, of whose fidelity you can never be secured whilst they owe a blind obedience to any infallible pope, who hath the keys of their consciences tied to his girdle, and can, upon occasion, dispense with all their oaths, promises, and the obligations they have to their prince, especially being (in their sense) a heretic, and arm them to the disturbance of the government, [I] think they ought not to enjoy the benefit of toleration.”

John Locke

An Essay on Toleration (1667), quoted in Mark Goldie (ed.), Locke: Political Essays (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 151-152.

Thinking , Sense

“The native and untaught suggestions of inquisitive children do often offer things, that may set a considering man's thoughts on work. And I think there is frequently more to be learn'd from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men, who talk in a road, according to the notions they have borrowed, and the prejudices of their education.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 121
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Men , Children , Education , Question

“One thing I have frequently observed in children, that when they have got possession of any poor creature, they are apt to use it ill: they often torment, and treat it very roughly, young birds, butterflies, and such other poor animals which fall into their hands, and that with a seeming kind of pleasure. This I think should be watched in them, and if they incline to any such cruelty, they should be taught the contrary usage. For the custom of tormenting and killing of beasts, will, by degrees, harden their minds even towards men; and they will delight in the suffering and destruction of inferior creatures, will not be apt to be very compassionate or benign to those of their own kind. Our practice takes notice of this in the exclusion of butchers from juries of life and death.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 116
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Life , Death , Men , Children

“He that thinks diversion may not lie in hard and painful labour, forgets the early rising, hard riding, heat, cold and hunger of huntsmen, which is yet known to be the constant recreation of men of the greatest condition.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 206
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Men , Hunger , Pain , Lie

“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.”

John Locke book Two Treatises of Government

Second Treatise of Civil Government, Ch. VII, sec. 93
Two Treatises of Government (1689)
Context: For if it be asked what security, what fence is there in such a state against the violence and oppression of this absolute ruler, the very question can scarce be borne. They are ready to tell you that it deserves death only to ask after safety. Betwixt subject and subject, they will grant, there must be measures, laws, and judges for their mutual peace and security. But as for the ruler, he ought to be absolute, and is above all such circumstances; because he has a power to do more hurt and wrong, it is right when he does it. To ask how you may be guarded from or injury on that side, where the strongest hand is to do it, is presently the voice of faction and rebellion. As if when men, quitting the state of Nature, entered into society, they agreed that all of them but one should be under the restraint of laws; but that he should still retain all the liberty of the state of Nature, increased with power, and made licentious by impunity. 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.

Men , Thinking