John Locke
John Locke was a 17th-century English philosopher, widely regarded as the "Father of Liberalism." His works laid the foundation for modern political philosophy, particularly through his theories on natural rights and government by consent. Notable for "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding," Locke's ideas influenced the Enlightenment and are integral to the development of social contract theory, impacting thinkers like Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson.
Book summaries for books written by John Locke
Quotes
All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.
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, health, liberty, or possessions.
Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
Where there is no property, there is no injustice.
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power.
Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.
The power of the legislative, being derived from the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to make legislators, the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands.
Freedom then is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us: A liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws.
The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.
The labor of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.