Quote

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.

George Berkeley

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George Berkeley
Age: 67 †
Born: 1685
Born: March 12
Died: 1753
Died: January 14
Anglican Priest
Epistemologist
Metaphysician
Philosopher
Philosopher Of Science
Writer
Bishop Berkeley
Bishop George Berkeley
Subjects
Poring
Eye
Cavern
Use
Caverns
Comes
Discern
Truth
Darkest
May
Glimpse
Even
Obscure
Long
Subject

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For my own private satisfaction, I had rather be master of my own time than wear a diadem.
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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.
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I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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Every knave is a thorough knave, and a thorough knave is a knave throughout.
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Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to our selves. That we have first raised a dust, and then complain, we cannot see.
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Whatever is immediately perceived is an idea: and can any idea exist out of the mind?
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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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I might as well doubt of my own being, as of the being of those things I actually see and feel.
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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?
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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!
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We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.
George Berkeley
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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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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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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?
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Certainly he who can digest a second or third fluxion need not, methinks, be squeamish about any point in divinity.
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The fawning courtier and the surly squire often mean the same thing,--each his own interest.
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