Locke Empiricism Quotes

Toynbee offers his own explanation of how and why societies survive and prosper. It is the leadership of "creative minorities" that keeps societies alive and flourishing. But when the "creative" minority becomes a "dominant" minority, imposing its will by force and oppression, then poletariats (internal and external) are created and the society disintegrates. Though fervent and profuse with the data of his "English empiricism," Toynbee still developed his own mystique to replace "destiny." The real progress of a civilization consists in what Toynbee calls "etherialization"-"an overcoming of material obstacles which releases the energy of the society to make responses to challenges which henceforth are internal rather than external, spiritual rather than material. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin

Every man's first declaration of love is bathos
the zenith of his passion connoting perhaps the nadir of his intelligence. ~ William John Locke

The younger generation is vibrant with a new psychology; the new spirit is awake in the masses ... Each generation ... will have its creed. ~ Alain LeRoy Locke

You think of 'Outlaw Josey Wales,' you immediately think of the old Indian guy, Sondra Locke, the old lady with the glasses, beautiful old actress. ~ Ben Mendelsohn

Thus Turks and Christians are of different religions, because these take the Holy Scriptures to be the rule of their religion, and those the Alcoran. And for the same reason there may be different religions also even amongst Christians. The Papists and Lutherans, though both of them profess faith in Christ and are therefore called Christians, yet are not both of the same religion, because these acknowledge nothing but the Holy Scriptures to be the rule and foundation of their religion, those take in also traditions and the decrees of Popes and of these together make the rule of their religion; and thus the Christians of St. John (as they are called) and the Christians of Geneva are of different religions, because these also take only the Scriptures, and those I know not what traditions, for the rule of their religion. ~ John Locke

Every Man being conscious to himself, That he thinks, and that which his Mind is employ'd about whilst thinking, being the Ideas, that are there, 'tis past doubt, that Men have in their Minds several Ideas, such as are those expressed by the words, Whiteness, Hardness, Sweetness, Thinking, Motion, Man, Elephant, Army, Drunkenness, and others: It is in the first place then to be inquired, How he comes by them? I know it is a received Doctrine, That Men have native Ideas, and original Characters stamped upon their Minds, in their very first Being. ~ John Locke

The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its Author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure, all sincere; nothing too much; nothing wanting! ~ John Locke

But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression ~ John Locke

English political sagacity is compounded of instinctive reactions to immediate situations and a wisdom, gained by cumulative experience, which guides instinct through the complexities, intricacies and imponderabilities of modern politics. The most typical social philosopher of England is not John Locke but Edmund Burke. Constitutional government may have found its first justification in the rationally elaborated theories of "rights" in the philosophy of the former. But the actual history of constitutionalism in England has been dominated by the logic expressed in the philosophy of the latter. The Englishman trusts not in the abstract "natural rights" dictated by reason, but the "English rights" which are guaranteed to him by his own history. ~ Reinhold Neibuhr

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

If we trace the progress of our minds, and with attention observe how it repeats, adds together, and unites its simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, it will lead us farther than at first, perhaps, we should have imagined. ~ John Locke

Like belief, doubt takes a lot of different forms, from ancient Skepticism to modern scientific empiricism, from doubt in many gods to doubt in one God, to doubt that recreates and enlivens faith and doubt that is really disbelief. ~ Jennifer Michael Hecht

It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. I mean, it's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary ... but, on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn't believe in anything anymore if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch. ~ Steve Martin

In many cases it is not one series of consequences will serve the turn, but many different and opposite deductions must be examined and laid together, before a man can come to make a right judgment of the point in question. What then can be expected from men that neither see the want of any such kind of reasoning as this, nor, if they do, know they how to set about it, or could perform it? ~ John Locke

James scoffed. "We are not being held prisoner. You're so dramatic."
"Oh yeah, she just kidnapped us and told us the only way we're going to be let go is if we go to other alien planets and steal from them. You're right, James, I'm clearly overly overreacting," Kat snapped. ~ L. Taylor

Since the Enlightenment, in the great tension between rationalism (how we would like things to be so they make sense to us) and empiricism (how things are), we have been blaming the world for not fitting the beds of "rational" models, have tried to change humans to fit technology, fudged our ethics to fit our needs for employment, asked economic life to fit the theories of economists, and asked human life to squeeze into some narrative. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Start with that. Chaos. No control, no law, no government at all. Like being in the arena. Where do we go from there? What sort of agreement is necessary if we're to live in peace? What sort of social contract is required for survival? ~ Suzanne Collins

Liberty is not an Idea belonging to Volition, or preferring; but to the Person having the Power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the Mind shall chuse or direct. ~ John Locke

He that in the ordinary affairs of life would admit of nothing but direct plain demonstration would be sure of nothing in this world but of perishing quickly. ~ John Locke

It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority rule, but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both. ~ Ayn Rand

It is a waste of energy to not just be happy. ~ Adriana Locke

going away with a guy I don't know for a few days seems . . . extreme?" "And ~ Adriana Locke

Another basic characteristic of liberalism which constitutes a formidable obstacle to an oppressed group's liberation is its conception of human nature. If selfishness, aggressiveness, the drive to conquer and dominate, really are among defining human traits, as every liberal philosopher since Locke tries to convince us, the oppression in civil society - i.e. in the social sphere not regulated by the state - is a fact of life, and the basic civil relationship between a man and a women will always remain a battlefield. Woman, being less aggressive, is then either the less human of the two and doomed to subjugation, or else she must get more power-hungry herself and try to dominate man. Liberation for both is not feasible. ~ Mihailo Markovic

In the upstate farmhouse he had dubbed Mount Zion, Matthias had apparently established for himself a community of seven wives - a "harem," Locke called it - six of them wealthy white women and the seventh a black servant by the name of Isabella Van Wagenen, and "had one appointed to each working day in the week, and the black one consecrated for Sundays." (Isabella Van Wagenen was a former slave who would later join the abolitionist movement, changing her name to the one by which she would be forever remembered: Sojourner Truth.) ~ Matthew Goodman

The position I now favor is that economics is a pre-science, rather like astronomy before Copernicus, Brahe and Galileo. I still hold out hope of better behavior in the future, but given the travesties of logic and anti-empiricism that have been committed in its name, it would be an insult to the other sciences to give economics even a tentative membership of that field.1 ~ Steve Keen

It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean. ~ John Locke

For a man's property is not at all secure, though there be good and equitable laws to set the bounds of it, between him and his fellow subjects, if he who commands those subjects, have power to take from any private man, what part he pleases of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks good. ~ John Locke

Knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes. ~ John Locke

I mean, it's not calling me 'Locke.' It knows my real name. ~ Scott Lynch

Practice conquers the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule. ~ John Locke

Not by way of the forced and worn formula of Romaticism, but throught the closeness of an imagination that has never broken kinship with nature. Art must accept such gifts, and revaluate the giver. ~ Alain LeRoy Locke

Men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, and while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no time to tend their health either of body or mind. ~ John Locke

I think I prefer Locke and his friends chasing me around the woods to you stabbing me in the back. Again ~ Holly Black

No peace and security among mankind - let alone common friendship - can ever exist as long as people think that governments get their authority from God and that religion is to be propagated by force of arms. ~ John Locke

How sharp a break not only with the recent past but with the whole evolution of Western civilization the modern trend toward socialism means becomes clear if we consider it not merely against the background of the nineteenth century but in a longer historical perspective. We are rapidly abandoning not the views merely of Cobden and Bright, of Adam Smith and Hume, or even of Locke and Milton,5 but one of the salient characteristics of Western civilization as it has grown from the foundations laid by Christianity and the Greeks and Romans. Not merely nineteenth- and eighteenth-century liberalism, but the basic individualism inherited by us from Erasmus and Montaigne, from Cicero and Tacitus, Pericles and Thucydides, is progressively relinquished.6 ~ Friedrich Hayek

I don't have to fight or run," [Locke] cackled. "I changed the rules of the game. I just have to keep you here ... asshole.
Here ... until ... Jean gets back. ~ Scott Lynch

It's perfect! Locke would appreciate it."
"Bug," Calo said, "Locke is our brother and our love for him knows no bounds. But the four most fatal words in the Therin language are 'Locke would appreciate it.'"
"Rivalled only by 'Locke taught me a new trick,'" added Galo.
"The only person who gets away with Locke Lamora games ... "
" ... is Locke ... "
" ... because we think the gods are saving him up for a really big death. Something with knives and hot irons ... "
" ... and fifty thousand cheering spectators. ~ Scott Lynch

Hope is what we all build lives for ourselves upon, is it not? ~ Scott Lynch

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Revelation in matters where reason cannot judge, or but probably, ought to be hearkened to. First, Whatever proposition is revealed, of whose truth our mind, by its natural faculties and notions, cannot judge, that is purely matter of faith, and above reason. ~ John Locke