Quotes from berkeley george ii

A patriot will admit there may be honest men, and that honest men may differ.

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.

Every knave is a thorough knave.

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.

We know well what we lose by death, but we know not what we gain.

This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived.

He that always blames, or always praises, is no patriot.

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.

Disputes are not to be decided by the weight of authority, but by the force of reason.

Did men but consider that the sun, moon, and stars, and every other object of the senses, are only so many sensations in their minds, which have no other existence but barely being perceived, doubtless they would never fall down and worship their own ideas; but rather address their homage to that eternal invisible Mind which produces and sustains all things.

Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few.

Make a point never so 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.

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

And doth not this observation hold in the civil as well as natural world? Doth not power produce license, and license power? Do not whigs make tories, and tories whigs? Bigots make atheists, and atheists bigots?

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.

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.

A man whose passion for money runs high bids fair for being no patriot. And he likewise whose appetite is keen for power.

We have first rais'd a Dust, and then complain, we cannot see.

A patriot will esteem no man for being of his party.