George Berkeley Quotes

Quotes about:

• To be is to be perceived (Esse est percipi)." Or, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

  George Berkeley

  Fall, Philosophical, Tree

  70 Copy quote

• Few men think, yet all will have opinions.

  George Berkeley

  Men, Thinking, Opinion

  George Berkeley (1843). “Works, Including His Letters to Thomas Prior, Dean Gervais, Mr. Pope, &c. to which is Prefixed an Account of His Life”, p.187

  39 Copy quote

• What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.

  George Berkeley

  Spiritual, Philosophical, Science

  34 Copy quote

• Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.

  George Berkeley

  Truth, Science, Games

  'Siris' (1744) para. 368

  47 Copy quote

• It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends and neighbours should be true to the public.

  George Berkeley

  Men, Impossible, Should

  1750 Maxims Concerning Patriotism.

  47 Copy quote

• All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth - in a word, all those bodies which compose the frame of the world - have not any subsistence without a mind.

  George Berkeley

  Heaven, Mind, Body

  A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge pt. 1, sec. 6 (1710)

  88 Copy quote

• To be is to be perceived

  George Berkeley

  Inspirational, Philosophy, Philosophical

  12 Copy quote

• We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.

  George Berkeley

  Inspirational, Dust, Complaining

  A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge introduction, sec. 3 (1710)

  8 Copy quote

• A ray of imagination or of wisdom may enlighten the universe, and glow into remotest centuries.

  George Berkeley

  Imagination, Rays, May

  26 Copy quote

• That thing of hell and eternal punishment is the most absurd, as well as the most disagreeable thought that ever entered into the head of mortal man.

  George Berkeley

  Men, Demise, Hell

  George Berkeley (1843). “Works, Including His Letters to Thomas Prior, Dean Gervais, Mr. Pope, &c. to which is Prefixed an Account of His Life”, p.461

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• The most ingenious men are now agreed, that [universities] are only nurseries of prejudice, corruption, barbarism, and pedantry.

  George Berkeley

  Men, Prejudice, Corruption

  19 Copy quote

• Of all men living [priests] are our greatest enemies. If it were possible, they would extinguish the very light of nature, turn the world into a dungeon, and keep mankind for ever in chains and darkness.

  George Berkeley

  Ignorance, Men, Light

  George Berkeley (1843). “Works, Including His Letters to Thomas Prior, Dean Gervais, Mr. Pope, &c. to which is Prefixed an Account of His Life”, p.303

  3 Copy quote

• To be a good patriot, a man must consider his countrymen as God's creatures, and himself as accountable for his acting towards them.

  George Berkeley

  Men, Patriotism, Acting

  George Berkeley (1837). “Works: Account of His Life and Letters”, p.362

  5 Copy quote

• This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived.

  George Berkeley

  Ideas, Soul, Perception

  George Berkeley (2015). “Principles of Human Knowledge: Human Understanding”, p.17, 谷月社

  23 Copy quote

• The world is like a board with holes in it, and the square men have got into the round holes, and the round into the square.

  George Berkeley

  Men, Squares, Boards

  Quoted by "Punch"; reported in "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, 1922.

  29 Copy quote

• Our youth we can have but to-day, We may always find time to grow old.

  George Berkeley

  Inspirational, May, Youth

  8 Copy quote

• All men have opinions, but few think.

  George Berkeley

  Men, Thinking, Opinion

  18 Copy quote

• God is a being of transcendent and unlimited perfections: his nature therefore is incomprehensible to finite spirits.

  George Berkeley

  God, Perfection, Spirit

  George Berkeley (1843). “Works, Including His Letters to Thomas Prior, Dean Gervais, Mr. Pope, &c. to which is Prefixed an Account of His Life”, p.221

  24 Copy quote

• A mind at liberty to reflect on its own observations, if it produce nothing useful to the world, seldom fails of entertainment to itself.

  George Berkeley

  Mind, Liberty, World

  George Berkeley, Alexander Campbell Fraser (1732). “The Works of George Berkeley, D.D., Formerly Bishop of Cloyne: Philosophical works, 1732-33: Alciphron. The theory of vision”, p.32

  12 Copy quote

• I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals.

  George Berkeley

  Stupid, Silly, Animal

  George Berkeley, Alexander Campbell Fraser (1871). “Miscellaneous works. Index, v.1-3”, p.187

  29 Copy quote

• Casting an eye on the education of children, from whence I can make a judgment of my own, I observe they are instructed in religious matters before they can reason about them, and consequently that all such instruction is nothing else but filling the tender mind of a child with prejudices.

  George Berkeley

  Education, Religious, Children

  George Berkeley (1837). “Works: Account of His Life and Letters”, p.122

  5 Copy quote

• Where the people are well educated, the art of piloting a state is best learned from the writings of Plato.

  George Berkeley

  Art, Plato, Writing

  George Berkeley, Joseph Stock (1820). “The works of George Berkeley”, p.403

  24 Copy quote

• That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so veryfew, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light.

  George Berkeley

  God, Truth, Lying

  George Berkeley (2015). “A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge”, p.85, Sheba Blake Publishing

  18 Copy quote

• That food nourishes, sleep refreshes, and fire warms us; that to sow in the seed-time is the way to reap in the harvest, and, in general, that to obtain such or such ends, such or such means are conducive, all this we know, not by discovering any necessary connexion between our ideas, but only by the observation of the settled laws of nature, without which we should be all in uncertainty and confusion, and a grown man no more know how to manage himself in the affairs of life than an infant just born.

  George Berkeley

  Mean, Sleep, Men

  George Berkeley (2013). “Principles of Human Knowledge”, p.27, Simon and Schuster

  19 Copy quote

• Every knave is a thorough knave, and a thorough knave is a knave throughout.

  George Berkeley

  Knavery, Knaves, Thorough

  George Berkeley (1837). “Works: Account of His Life and Letters”, p.362

  19 Copy quote

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