Berkeley, George

"Esse est percipi"

"To be is to be perceived"

"All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth – in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world – have not any subsistence without a mind"

"The mind is a beautiful thing, yet it can only exist through perception"

"Whatever the world may say of me, I am confident that my doctrine is sound and true"

"I openly and candidly declare myself an Immaterialist"

"What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind."

"Sensible objects are all immediately perceivable, and nothing is perceived but ideas"

"To be idle and slothful is the greatest dishonor"

"The secret is the name of the game in all mechanical science"

"Man knoweth not the things of man, but by the Spirit of man which is in him"

"A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true"

"I may be foolish, but I have a strong faith in my convictions"

"Knowledge is power, yet power is not knowledge"

"The eyes are the windows of the soul"

"Absolutes are abstracts, and all abstracts are nonsense"

"God is a spirit, but he is not the spirit of the world"

"Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to do; and to know what he ought to hope"

"The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses"

"He who would seriously set upon the pursuit of truth must first prepare himself by mastering the science of ideas"

"The pursuit of truth is the proper business of life"

"In the ordinary affairs of life, we are bound to act on probabilities"

"Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure"

"The world consists of nothing but mind and ideas"

"Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and figures – in a word the things we perceive – are not the images of external objects, but are the very objects themselves"

"Time is the measure of change, yet time itself changes nothing"

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn"

"Language is a tool of thought, and thoughts shape reality"

"Money is the sinews of business, yet the sinews of war"

"Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army"