The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.
Philosophers
John Locke
Born in 1632 in England, John Locke is known as the 'father of British empiricism' and the 'father of liberalism.' His tabula rasa epistemology — that the mind is a blank slate at birth — and his social-contract theory defending life, liberty, and property as inviolable natural rights formed the intellectual skeleton of the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, laying the foundations of modern democracy and constitutional government.
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John Locke's Other Quotes
Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? ... To this I answer, in one word, from experience.
Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided ... he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.
Related Quotes
Man is by nature a political animal.
-- Aristotle
Unless philosophers rule as kings, or kings genuinely philosophize, there will be no end to troubles for states.
-- Plato
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
-- John Stuart Mill
The virtuous city resembles a sound and healthy body.
-- Farabi
The ruler of the virtuous city is one who unites wisdom and prophecy.
-- Farabi