George Berkeley quotes - page 2

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? (George Berkeley)
Seeing therefore they are both [heat and pain] immediately perceived at the same time, and the fire affects you only with one simple, or uncompounded idea, it follows that this same simple idea is both the intense heat immediately perceived, and the pain; and consequently, that the intense heat immediately perceived, is nothing distinct from a particular sort of pain. View quote
George Berkeley
We indeed, who are beings of finite powers, are forced to make use of instruments. And the use of an instrument sheweth the agent to be limited by rules of another's prescription, and that he cannot obtain his end but in such a way, and by such conditions. Whence it seems a clear consequence, that the supreme unlimited agent useth no tool or instrument at all. The will of an Omnipotent Spirit is no sooner exerted than executed, without the application of means; which, if they are employed by inferior agents, it is not upon account of any real efficacy that is in them, or necessary aptitude to produce any effect, but merely in compliance with the laws of nature, or those conditions prescribed to them by the First Cause, who is Himself above all limitation or prescription whatsoever. View quote
George Berkeley
What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. View quote
George Berkeley
It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends and neighbours should be true to the public. View quote
George Berkeley
A ray of imagination or of wisdom may enlighten the universe, and glow into remotest centuries. View quote
George Berkeley
The most ingenious men are now agreed, that [universities] are only nurseries of prejudice, corruption, barbarism, and pedantry. View quote
George Berkeley
To be is to be perceived. View quote
George Berkeley
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. View quote
George Berkeley
God is a being of transcendent and unlimited perfections: his nature therefore is incomprehensible to finite spirits. View quote
George Berkeley
I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals. (George Berkeley)
He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave. View quote
George Berkeley
A mind at liberty to reflect on its own observations, if it produce nothing useful to the world, seldom fails of entertainment to itself. View quote
George Berkeley
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. View quote
George Berkeley
Whose fault is it if poor Ireland still continues poor? View quote
George Berkeley
What doubts, what hypotheses, what labyrinths of amusement, what fields of disputation, what an ocean of false learning, may be avoided by that single notion of immaterialism! View quote
George Berkeley
Religion is the centre which unites, and the cement which connects the several parts of members of the political body. View quote
George Berkeley
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. View quote
George Berkeley
I might as well doubt of my own being, as of the being of those things I actually see and feel. View quote
George Berkeley
There being in the make of an English mind a certain gloom and eagerness, which carries to the sad extreme; religion to fanaticism; free-thinking to atheism; liberty to rebellion. View quote
George Berkeley
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)
... we ought to. View quote
George Berkeley