George Berkeley Quotes
George Berkeley was an Anglo-Irish philosopher and Anglican bishop best known for his theory of immaterialism, sometimes called subjective idealism. His Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues argue that material objects exist only as perceptions in minds, summarized in the formula esse est percipi: to be is to be perceived. The quotes below are attributed to George Berkeley, organized by topic.
Browse George Berkeley by topic
George Berkeley on Knowledge
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“To be is to be perceived.”
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, §3 -
“Few men think, yet all will have opinions.”
Philonous to Hylas. The Second Dialogue. This appears in a passage first added in the third edition, (1734) -
“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?”
quoted in C. K. Raju, Cultural Foundations of Mathematics , Vol. 10, Pt. 4 : The Nature of Mathematical Proof and the Transmission of the Calculus from India to Europe (India: Pearson Longman, 2007) -
“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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George Berkeley on Love
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“Can Love be controlled by Advice? , reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations , 10th ed. (1919).”
Our youth we can have but to-day, We may always find time to grow old.
George Berkeley on Mind
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Attributed to George Berkeley:
“All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind.”
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Attributed to George Berkeley:
“It is impossible that I should conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the sensation or perception of it.”
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“Abstract terms (however useful they may be in argument) should be discarded in meditation, and the mind should be fixed on the particular and the concrete, that is, on the things themselves.”
De Motu(1721) | Paragraph 4 -
“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?”
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous(1713) | Philonous to Hylas -
“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?”
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous(1713) | Philonous to Hylas. Hylas replies with, "So it seems". -
“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.”
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous(1713) | Philonous to Hylas
George Berkeley on Nature
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“It is said, that the minutest Errors are not to be neglected in Mathematics: that the Fluxions are...not proportional to the finite Increments though ever so small; but only to. . . nascent Increments. . . And. . . there be other Fluxions, which Fluxions of Fluxions are called second Fluxions. And the Fluxions of these sec- ond Fluxions are called third Fluxions: and so on, fourth, fifth, sixth, &”
quoted in C. K. Raju, Cultural Foundations of Mathematics , Vol. 10, Pt. 4 : The Nature of Mathematical Proof and the Transmission of the Calculus from India to Europe (India: Pearson Longman, 2007) -
“[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.”
Siris(1744) | Paragraph 217; comparable to: "Cups / That cheer but not inebriate", William Cowper , The Task , book iv, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations , 10th ed. (1919)
George Berkeley on Politics
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“Westward the course of empire takes its way.”
On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America (written in 1726), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations , 10th ed. (1919); comparable to: "Westward the star of empire takes its way", Epigraph to Bancroft's History of the United States ; "What worlds in the yet unformed Occident / May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?", Samuel Daniel , Musophilus (1599), Stanza 163 | Accor
George Berkeley on Time
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Attributed to George Berkeley:
“Whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea of time, abstracted from the succession of ideas in my mind, I am lost.”
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“Our youth we can have but to-day, We may always find time to grow old.”
Can Love be controlled by Advice? , reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations , 10th ed. (1919). -
“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.”
On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America (written in 1726), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations , 10th ed. (1919); comparable to: "Westward the star of empire takes its way", Epigraph to Bancroft's History of the Unit
George Berkeley on Truth
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“Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.”
Paragraph 368 -
“For Science it cannot be called, when you proceed blindfold, and arrive at the Truth not knowing how or by what means.”
quoted in C. K. Raju, Cultural Foundations of Mathematics , Vol. 10, Pt. 4 : The Nature of Mathematical Proof and the Transmission of the Calculus from India to Europe (India: Pearson Longman, 2007) -
“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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George Berkeley on Virtue
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Attributed to George Berkeley:
“He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.”