Date: 1706

"Matters that are recommended to our thoughts by any of our passions take possession of our minds with a kind of authority, and will not be kept out or dislodged, but, as if the passion that rules were, for the time, the sheriff of the place, and came with all the posse, the understanding is seiz...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1706

"There is scarce any body, I think, of so calm a temper who hath not sometime found this tyranny on his understanding, and suffered under the inconvenience of it."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1706

"Who is there almost whose mind, at some time or other, love or anger, fear or grief, has not so fastened to some clog, that it could not turn itself to any other object? I call it a clog, for it hangs upon the mind so as to hinder its vigour and activity in the pursuit of other contemplations, a...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1706

"Did this state of mind remain always so, every one would, without scruple, give it the name of perfect madness; and whilst it does last, at whatever intervals it returns, such a rotation of thoughts about the same object no more carries us forwards towards the attainment of knowledge, than getti...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: September 20, 1692; 1708

"There are Beauties of the Mind, as well as of the Body, that take and prevail at first sight: And where-ever I have met with this, I have readily surrendered my self, and have never yet been deceiv'd in my Expectation."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: April 26, 1695; 1708

"Meditating by one's self is like digging in the Mine; it often, perhaps, brings up maiden Earth, which never came near the Light before; but whether it contain any Metal in it, is never so well tried as in Conversation with a knowing judicious Friend, who carries about him the true Touch-stone, ...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: March 30, 1696; 1708

"Nay, I so far incline to comply with your Desires, that I every now and then lay by some Materials for it, as they occasionally occur in the Rovings of my Mind."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: June 15, 1697; 1708

"Do but think then what a Pleasure, what an Advantage it would be to me, to have you by me, who have so much Thought, so much Clearness, so much Penetration, all directed to the same Aim which I propose to my self, in all the Ramblings of my Mind."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: April 6, 1698; 1708

"I hop'd therefore, as I said, to have seen you, and unravel'd to you that which lying in the Lump unexplicated in my Mind, I scarce yet know what it is my self; for I have often had Experience that a Man cannot well judge of his own Notions, till either by setting them down in Paper, or in disco...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: January 20, 1692/3; 1708

"But I perfectly agree with you concerning general Theories, that they are for the most part but a sort of waking Dreams, with which, when Men have warm'd their own Heads, they pass into unquestionable Truths, and then the ignorant World must be set right by them."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)