No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.
- Topic: Experience, Knowledge
- Location: Olympic National Park
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from John Locke
Freedom is to be free from restraint and violence from others.
Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.
Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary rule of another man.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
More Quotes from Olympic National Park
More on These Topics
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story.
Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.
Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them. And their race is not to blame for everything—good or bad—that happens in their lives.
Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.
Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionately to their occupancy of your thoughts.
No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.
What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold.
There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher.
They [the Americans] have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man, they judge that the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and they admit that what appears to them today to be good, may be superseded by something better tomorrow.
Nothing leads so straight to futility as literary ambitions without systematic knowledge.
When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of human existence.
If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
