George Berkeley Quotes - Page 3

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• The method of Fluxions is the general key by help whereof the modern mathematicians unlock the secrets of Geometry, and consequently of Nature.

  George Berkeley

  Keys, Secret, Helping

  George Berkeley (2016). “The Analyst: A Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician”, p.3, Library of Alexandria

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• Make a point never go clear, it is great odds that a man whose habits and the bent of whose mind lie a contrary way, shall be unable to comprehend it. So weak a thing is reason in competition with inclination.

  George Berkeley

  Lying, Men, Odds

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• All those who write either explicitly or by insinuation against the dignity, freedom, and immortality of the human soul, may so far forth be justly said to unhinge the principles of morality, and destroy the means of making men reasonably virtuous.

  George Berkeley

  Writing, Mean, Men

  George Berkeley (1871). “The applied philosophical works”, p.16

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• To me it seems that liberty and virtue were made for each other. If any man wish to enslave his country, nothing is a fitter preparative than vice; and nothing leads to vice so surely as irreligion.

  George Berkeley

  Country, Men, Wish

  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.355

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• It would much conduce to the public benefit, if, instead of discouraging free-thinking, there was erected in the midst of this free country a dianoetic academy, or seminary for free-thinkers, provided with retired chambers, and galleries, and shady walks and groves, where, after seven years spent in silence and meditation, a man might commence a genuine free-thinker, and from that time forward, have license to think what he pleased, and a badge to distinguish him from counterfeits.

  George Berkeley

  Country, Men, Thinking

  George Berkeley (1732). “Alciphron: Or, The Minute Philosopher. In Seven Dialogues. Containing an Apology for the Christian Religion Against Those who are Called Free-thinkers ...”, p.216

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• But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park [. . .] and nobody by to perceive them. [...] The objects of sense exist only when they are perceived; the trees therefore are in the garden [. . .] no longer than while there is somebody by to perceive them.

  George Berkeley

  Garden, Tree, Parks

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• It is a mistake, to think the same thing affects both sight and touch. If the same angle or square, which is the object of touch,be also the object of vision, what should hinder the blind man, at first sight, from knowing it?

  George Berkeley

  Mistake, Thinking, Men

  George Berkeley, Joseph Stock (1843). “The Works of George Berkeley, D.D., Bishop of Cloyne: Including His Letters to Thomas Prior, Esq., Dean Gervais, Mr. Pope, &c., &c. ; to which is Prefixed an Account of His Life”, p.283

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• The real essence, the internal qualities, and constitution of even the meanest object, is hid from our view; something there is inevery drop of water, every grain of sand, which it is beyond the power of human understanding to fathom or comprehend. But it is evidentthat we are influenced by false principles to that degree as to mistrust our senses, and think we know nothing of those things which we perfectly comprehend.

  George Berkeley

  Real, Thinking, Views

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• Whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea of time, abstracted from the succession of ideas in my mind, which flows uniformly, and is participated by all beings, I am lost and embrangled in inextricable difficulties.

  George Berkeley

  Simple, Ideas, Mind

  George Berkeley, Desmond M. Clarke (2008). “Berkeley: Philosophical Writings”, p.122, Cambridge University Press

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• Whatever the world thinks, he who hath not much meditated upon God, the human soul, and the summum bonum, may possibly make a thriving earthworm, but will most indubitably make a sorry patriot and a sorry statesman.

  George Berkeley

  Sorry, Thinking, Soul

  George Berkeley, Arthur James Balfour Balfour (Earl of) (1897). “The works of George Berkeley, D.D., bishop of Cloyne”

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• The table I write on I say exists ... meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it.

  George Berkeley

  Writing, Tables, Might

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

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• And what are these fluxions? The velocities of evanescent increments. And what are these same evanescent increments? They are neither finite quantities, nor quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing. May we not call them the ghosts of departed quantities...?

  George Berkeley

  Math, Departed, May

  George Berkeley (1871). “The Works of George Berkeley: Miscellaneous works. Index, v.1-3”, p.283

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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.

  George Berkeley

  Ideas, Mind, Reason

  George Berkeley, Joseph Stock (1843). “The Works of George Berkeley, D.D., Bishop of Cloyne: Including His Letters to Thomas Prior, Esq., Dean Gervais, Mr. Pope, &c., &c. ; to which is Prefixed an Account of His Life”, p.202

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• I am apt to think, if we knew what it was to be an angel for one hour, we should return to this world, though it were to sit on the brightest throne in it, with vastly more loathing and reluctance than we would now descend into a loathsome dungeon or sepulchre.

  George Berkeley

  Angel, Thinking, Dungeons

  George Berkeley, Joseph Stock (1820). “The Works of George Berkeley”, p.66

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• Nothing can be plainer, than that the motions, changes, decays, and dissolutions, which we hourly see befall natural bodies (and which is what we mean by the course of nature), cannot possibly affect an active, simple, uncompounded substance: such a being therefore is indissoluble by the force of nature, that is to say, the soul of man is naturally immortal.

  George Berkeley

  Nature, Mean, Simple

  George Berkeley (2015). “A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge”, p.82, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Colour, Figure, Motion, Extension and the like, considered only so many Sensations in the Mind, are perfectly known, there being nothing in them which is not perceived. But if they are looked on as notes or Images, referred to Things or Archetypes existing without the Mind, then are we involved all in Scepticism.

  George Berkeley

  Science, Mind, Notes

  George Berkeley (2009). “Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues”, p.62, Oxford University Press

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• The fawning courtier and the surly squire often mean the same thing,--each his own interest.

  George Berkeley

  Mean, Selfishness, Surly

  George Berkeley (1837). “Works: Account of His Life and Letters”, p.363

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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.

  George Berkeley

  Nature, Cheer, Water

  'Siris' (1744) para. 217.

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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?

  George Berkeley

  Reality, Mind, Bears

  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.155

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• The love of truth, virtue, and the happiness of mankind are specious pretexts, but not the inward principles that set divines at work; else why should they affect to abuse human reason, to disparage natural religion, to traduce the philosophers as they universally do?

  George Berkeley

  Truth, Abuse, Principles

  George Berkeley, Alexander Campbell Fraser (1871). “Philosophical works”, p.181

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• Certainly he who can digest a second or third fluxion need not, methinks, be squeamish about any point in divinity.

  George Berkeley

  Learning, Science, Discovery

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• If what you mean by the word "matter" be only the unknown support of unknown qualities, it is no matter whether there is such a thing or no, since it no way concerns us; and I do not see the advantage there is in disputing about what we know not what, and we know not why.

  George Berkeley

  Mean, Support, Quality

  George Berkeley (2009). “Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues”, p.58, Oxford University Press

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• But the velocities of the velocities - the second, third, fourth, and fifth velocities, etc. - exceed, if I mistake not, all human understanding.

  George Berkeley

  Mistake, Math, Understanding

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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.

  George Berkeley

  Drama, Past, Four

  "On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America" st. 6 (1752)

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• All that stock of arguments [the skeptics] produce to depreciate our faculties, and make mankind appear ignorant and low, are drawn principally from this head, to wit, that we are under an invincible blindness as to the true and real nature of things.

  George Berkeley

  Real, Ignorant, Argument

  George Berkeley (1982). “A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge ...”, p.62, Hackett Publishing

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