Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"A pestle and mortar will as soon bring any particle of matter to indivisibility, as the acutest thought of a mathematician; and a surveyor may as soon with his chain measure out infinite space, as a philosopher by the quickest flight of mind reach it, or by thinking comprehend it; which is to ha...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"At least they interpose themselves so much between our understandings and the truth which it would contemplate and apprehend, that like the medium through which visible objects pass, their obscurity and disorder do not seldom cast a mist before our eyes, and impose upon our understandings."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"For the natural tendency of the Mind being towards Knowledge; and finding if it should proceed by, and dwell upon only particular Things, its Progress would be very slow, and its Work endless: Therefore to shorten its way to Knowledge, and make each Perception the more comprehensive; the first T...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Such borrowed Wealth, like Fairy-money, though it were Gold in the hand from which he received it, will be but Leaves and Dust when it comes to use."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"These, when we have taken a full survey of them, and their several modes, and the Compositions made out of them, we shall find to contain all our whole stock of Ideas; and that we have nothing in our Minds, which did not come in, one of these two ways."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Let any one examine his own Thoughts, and throughly search into his Understanding, and then let him tell me, Whether all the original Ideas he has there, are any other than of the Objects of his Senses, or of the Operations of his Mind, considered as Objects of his Reflection: and how great a ma...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"I see no Reason therefore to believe, that the Soul thinks before the Senses have furnished it with Ideas to think on; and as those are increased, and retained; so it comes, by Exercise, to improve its Faculty of thinking in the several parts of it, as well as afterwards, by compounding those Id...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Nor let any one think these too narrow bounds for the capacious Mind of Man to expatiate in, which takes its flight farther than the Stars, and cannot be confined by the limits of the World; that extends its thoughts often even beyond the utmost expansion of Matter, and makes excursions into tha...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"For besides the vast Number of different Figures, that do really exist in the coherent masses of Matter, the Stock, that the Mind has in its Power, by varying the Idea of Space; and thereby making still new Compositions, by repeating its own Ideas, and joining them as it pleases, is perfectly in...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Whereby the increase brought into the Stock of real Knowledge has been very little, in proportion to the Schools, Disputes, and Writings, the World has been fill'd with; whilst Men, being lost in the great Wood of Words, knew not whereabout they were, how far their Discoveries were advanced, or ...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)