John Locke was an influential Enlightenment thinker whose ideas shaped modern concepts of liberty and government. He proposed that all people are born with natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and that governments should protect these rights. If governments fail to do so, people have a right to rebel. Locke's view that people are born with a blank slate influenced the Declaration of Independence's phrase about the "pursuit of happiness." His ideas helped establish principles of equality, limited government, and individual freedom that formed the basis of Western liberal democracies.