The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have.

Locke is observing a familiar feature of intellectual life: some of our best ideas arrive without deliberate effort—unexpected connections, sudden insights, or solutions that appear while the mind is relaxed rather than straining. The remark implies that value in thinking is not always proportional to conscious labor; the mind’s associative powers can yield discoveries “unsought.” At the same time, the quote does not celebrate passivity so much as attentiveness: if valuable thoughts “drop into the mind,” the thinker must notice, preserve, and test them. In a Lockean frame, such moments still belong to experience and reflection, but they remind us that reflection often works indirectly and intermittently.