Quotes from John Locke

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.

that every man should have as much as he could make use of, would hold still in the world, without straitening any body;

No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.

had not the invention of money, and the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger possessions, and a right to them; which, how it has done, I shall by and by show more at large.

though men had a right to appropriate, by their labour, each one to himself, as much of the things of nature as he could use:

Le leggi non vegliano sulla verità delle opinioni ma sulla sicurezza e l'integrità di ciascuno e dello Stato.

But the business of laws is not to provide for the truth of opinions, but for the safety and security of the commonwealth and of every particular man's goods and person.

Freedom, then, is not what sir Robert Filmer tells us, O.A. 55, " a liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws :" but freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of the society

The great and cheif end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property; to which in the state of Nature there are many things wanting

for a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one

Truth is the marking down in words the agreement or disagreement of ideas as it is. Falsehood is the marking down in words the agreement or disagreement of ideas otherwise than it is. And so far as these ideas, thus marked by sounds, agree to their archetypes, so far only is the truth real. The knowledge of this truth consists in knowing what ideas the words stand for, and the perception of the agreement or disagreement of those ideas, according as it is marked by those words.

having by his fault forfeited his own life, by some act that deserves death; he, to whom he has forfeited it, may (when he has him in his power) delay to take it, and make use of him to his own service, and he does him no injury by it:

Kings are above the laws

we find among the Jews, as well as other nations, that men did sell themselves; but, it is plain, this was only to drudgery, not to slavery:

A Law cannot give to Bills that intrinsick Value, which the universal Consent of Mankind has annexed to Silver and Gold

Though it be ever so plain, that there ought to be government in the world

submission to government be every one's duty

without any express compact of all the commoners.

God planted in men a strong desire also of propagating their kind, and continuing themselves in their posterity; and this gives children a title to share in the property of their parents, and a right to inherit their possessions.

man can never be obliged in conscience to submit to any power, unless he can be satisfied who is the person who has a right to exercise that power over him.

From all which it is evident, that though the things of nature are given in common, yet man, by being master of himself, and " proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it, had still in himself the great foundation of property;" and that which made up the greater part of what he applied to the support or comfort of his being, when invention and arts had improved the conveniencies of life, was perfectly his own, and did not belong in common to others.

distinction between pirates and lawful princes; he that has force is without any more ado to be obeyed, and crowns and sceptres would become the inheritance only of violence and rapine.

It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men.

Whether there be any such moral principles, wherein all men do agree, I appeal to any who have been but moderately conversant in the history of mankind, and looked abroad beyond the smoke of their own chimneys.