Date: 1732

"He that wants the proper materials of thought, may think and meditate for ever to no purpose: those cobwebs spun by scholars out of their own brains being alike unserviceable, either for use or ornament."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"Gorgias hath gone further, demonstrating man to be a piece of clock-work or machine; and that thought or reason are the same thing as the impulse of one ball against another."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"Cimon hath made noble use of these discoveries, proving as clearly as any proposition in mathematics, that conscience is a whim, and morality a prejudice; and that a man is no more accountable for his actions than a clock is for striking."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"To remove and cast off a heap of rubbish that has been gathering upon the soul from our very infancy, requires great courage and great strength of faculties."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"It is very possible, the heroic labours of these men may be represented (for what is not capable of misrepresentation?) as a piratical plundering and stripping the mind of its wealth and ornaments, when it is in truth the divesting it only of its prejudices, and reducing it to its untainted orig...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"And suppose that in man, after a certain season, the appetite of lust or the faculty of reason shall shoot forth, open, and display themselves as leaves and blossoms do in a tree; would you therefore deny them to be natural to him, because they did not appear in his original infancy?"

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

" It seems then that from what you have granted it should follow, things may be natural to men, although they do not actually show themselves in all men, nor in equal perfection; there being as great difference of culture and every other advantage with respect to human nature, as is to be found w...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"And as those fruits which grow from the most generous and mature stock, in the choicest soil, and with the best culture, are most esteemed; even so ought we not to think, those sublime truths which are the fruits of mature thought, and have been rationally deduced by men of the best and most imp...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"And if so, being in fact reasonable, natural, and true, they ought not to be esteemed unnatural whims, errors of education, and groundless prejudices, because they are raised and forwarded by manuring and cultivating our tender minds, because they take early root and sprout forth betimes by the ...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"But suppose my Mind white Paper, and without being at any pains to extirpate my Opinions, or prove your own, only say what you wou'd write thereon, or what you wou'd teach me in case I were teacheable."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)