George Berkeley Quotes
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Few men think; yet all have opinions.
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Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.
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That there is no such thing as what philosophers call material substance, I am seriously persuaded: but if I were made to see any thing absurd or skeptical in this, I should then have the same reason to renounce this, that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion.
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Since therefore, as well those degrees of heat that are not painful, as those that are, can exist in a thinking substance; may we not conclude that external bodies are absolutely incapable of any degree of heat whatsoever?
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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.
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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.
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If we admit a thing so extraordinary as the creation of this world, it should seem that we admit something strange, and odd, and new to human apprehension, beyond any other miracle whatsoever.
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For no one's authority ought to rank so high as to set a value on his words and terms even though nothing clear and determinate lies behind them.
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The eye by long use comes to see even in the darkest cavern: and there is no subject so obscure but we may discern some glimpse of truth by long poring on it.
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That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what every body will allow.
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Solicitation and effort or conation belong properly to animate beings alone. When they are attributed to other things, they must be taken in a metaphorical sense; but a philosopher should abstain from metaphor.
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From my own being, and from the dependency I find in myself and my ideas, I do, by an act of reason, necessarily infer the existence of a God, and of all created things in the mind of God.
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In the pursuit of truth we must beware of being misled by terms which we do not rightly understand. That is the chief point. Almost all philosophers utter the caution; few observe it.
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Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past,A fifth shall close the drama with the day: Time's noblest offspring is the last.
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We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.
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I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals.
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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.
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Many things, for aught I know, may exist, whereof neither I nor any other man hath or can have any idea or notion whatsoever.
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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.
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Others indeed may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretence to it; but the free-thinker alone is truly free.
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He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.
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Doth the reality of sensible things consist in being perceived? or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears no relation to the mind?
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Tar water is of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution, as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate.
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The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.