Quotes from John Locke

it will destroy the authority of the present governors, and absolve the people from subjection to them, since they, having no better claim than others to that power, which is alone the fountain of all authority, can have no title to rule over them.

Right and conveniency went together; for as a man had a right to all he could employ his labour upon, so he had no temptation to labour for more than he could make use of. This left no room for controversy about the title, nor for encroachment on the right of others ; what portion a man carved to himself was easily seen: and it was useless, as well as dishonest, to carve himself too much, or take more than he needed.

we consult reason or revelation

Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good.

Por "república" he entendido constantemente no una democracia ni cualquier otra forma de gobierno, sino cualquier comunidad independiente

nadie puede transferir a otro más poder del que encerrare en sí, y nadie sobre sí goza de poder absoluto y arbitrario, ni sobre los demás tampoco, que le permitiere destruir su vida o arrebatar la vida o propiedad ajena.

govern his actions according to the dictates of the law of reason which God had implanted in him.

all parents were, by the law of nature, "under an obligation to preserve, nourish, and educate the children" they had begotten; not as their own workmanship, but the workmanship of their own maker, the Almighty, to whom they were to be accountable for them.

To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider what state 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.

To speak less learnedly, and more intelligibly

nobody can be under a law which is not promulgated to him;

Adam's children, being not presently as soon as born under this law of reason, were not presently free : for law, in its true notion, is not so much the limitation, as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no farther than is for the general good of those under that law:

justify to the world the people of England, whose love of their just and natural rights, with their resolution to preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the very brink of slavery and ruin.

When any such declaration of God's intention is produced, it will be our duty to believe God intends it so; but till that be done, our author must show us some better warrant, before we shall be obliged to receive him as the authentic revealer of God's intentions.

that, however it may be mistaken, the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom:

cualquiera que sea la forma adoptada por la república, debería el poder dirigente gobernar por leyes declaradas y bien recibidas y no por dictados repentinos y resoluciones indeterminadas, porque entonces se hallarían los hombres en harto peor condición que en el estado de naturaleza

not by the force of arguments and opposition, but by the intricacy of the words

Dominion of life and death, making war, and concluding peace, p. 13. Adam and the patriarchs had absolute power of life and death

where there is no law, there is no freedom;

Chains are but an ill wearing, how much Care soever hath been taken to file and polish them.

but freedom is not, as we are told, " a liberty for every man to do what he lists:" (for who could be free, when every other man's humour might domineer over him ?) but a liberty to dispose and order as he lists his person, actions, possessions, and his whole property, within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own.

positive laws of an established government.

It is evident the mind knows not things immediately, but only by the intervention of the ideas it has of them.

God gave the world to men in common; but since he gave it them for their benefit, and the greatest conveniencies of life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated.