John Locke Quotes

If government be founded in the consent of the people, it can have no power over any individual by whom that consent is refused.

Government has no other end but the preservation of property.

The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property, without his consent in person, or by representation.

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.

By deriving it's just powers from the governed, government becomes primarily a mechanism for defense against bodily harm, theft, and involuntary servitude. It cannot claim the power to redistribute money or property nor to force reluctant citizens to perform acts of charity against their will. Government is created by the people. No individual possesses the power to take another's wealth or to force others to do good, so no government has the the right to do such things either. The creature cannot exceed the creator.

Children learn many principles of natural law at a very early age. For example: they learn that when one child has picked up an apple or a flower, it is his, and that his associates must not take it from him against his will.

We are not naughty children, and the state is not our parent.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men's property, which they had not before, as individuals.

Protection of private property is a fundamental right protected in a strong democracy.

Establish democracy ... based on human rights as superior to property rights.

Make no mistake. Without individual property, none are free.

People have rights and government must be kept from trampling on them.

The legitimate acts of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

The great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property

The reason why men enter into [political] society is the preservation of their property.

The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property; and the end while they choose and authorize a legislature is that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the society, to limit the power and moderate the dominion of every part and member of the society.

The right to private property is valid, but all private property is under a "social mortgage.

Personally I think that private property has a right to be defended. Our civilisation is built up on property, and can only be defended by private property.

I want everyone to keep the property that he has acquired for himself according to the principle: benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual. But the state should retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by the state. It is his duty not to use his property against the interests of others among his own people. This is the crucial matter. The Third Reich will always retain its right to control the owners of property.

The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.

The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.

The authority of government . . . can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.

State authority can never be an end in itself; for, if that were so, any kind of tyranny would be inviolable and sacred. If a government uses the instruments of power in its hands for the purpose of leading a people to ruin, then rebellion is not only the right but also the duty of every individual citizen.

There is nothing government can give you that it hasn't taken from you in the first place.