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

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• 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)

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• 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

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

  George Berkeley

  Truth, Science, Games

  'Siris' (1744) para. 368

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

  George Berkeley

  Spiritual, Philosophical, Science

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• 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.

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• 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

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

  George Berkeley

  Imagination, Rays, May

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• 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 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.

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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

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• 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

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• How often must I repeat, that I know or am conscious of my own being; and that I myself am not my ideas, but somewhat else, a thinking, active principle that perceives, knows, wills, and operates about ideas?

  George Berkeley

  Thinking, Ideas, Perception

  George Berkeley (1837). “Works: Account of His Life and Letters”, p.69

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• In short, if there were external bodies, it is impossible we should ever come to know it; and if there were not, we might have the very same reasons to think there were that we have now.

  George Berkeley

  Thinking, Body, Might

  George Berkeley (2015). “Principles of Human Knowledge: Human Understanding”, p.22, 谷月社

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• 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

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• So long as I confine my thoughts to my own ideas divested of words, I do not see how I can be easily mistaken.

  George Berkeley

  Philosophical, Ideas, Long

  George Berkeley (1843). “The Works of George Berkeley: Including His Letters to Thomas Prior, Dean Gervais, Mr. Pope, Etc. : to which is Prefixed an Account of His Life”, p.85

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• 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

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• The question between the materialists and me is not, whether things have a real existence out of the mind of this or that person, but whether they have an absolute existence, distinct from being perceived by God, and exterior to all minds.

  George Berkeley

  Real, Mind, Existence

  George Berkeley (2008). “Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.129, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I do not deny the existence of material substance merely because I have no notion of it, but because the notion of it is inconsistent, or in other words, because it is repugnant that there should be a notion of it.

  George Berkeley

  Substance, Deny, Should

  George Berkeley, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (2007). “Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous”, p.95, Lulu.com

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• He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.

  George Berkeley

  Truth, Lying, Men

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

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• 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

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• Religion is the centre which unites, and the cement which connects the several parts of members of the political body.

  George Berkeley

  Political, Religion, Body

  George Berkeley (1752). “A Miscellany, Containing Several Tracts on Various Subjects”, p.67

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