Others indeed may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretence to it but the free-thinker alone is truly free.
George BerkeleyRead
All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth - in a word, all those bodies which compose the frame of the world - have not any subsistence without a mind.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that reality and existence are dependent on consciousness and perception.
George Berkeley's quote highlights the philosophical idea that objects and the world around us do not have an existence independent of our perception. He argues that it is the mind that gives meaning and substance to the physical world, suggesting that reality is fundamentally tied to our consciousness and understanding.
In practice
In a philosophy class discussing the nature of reality and existence.
Others indeed may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretence to it but the free-thinker alone is truly free.
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?
Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.
The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.
Many things, for aught I know, may exist, whereof neither I nor any other man hath or can have any idea or notion whatsoever.
A ray of imagination or of wisdom may enlighten the universe, and glow into remotest centuries.
When she read just now to James, 'and there were numbers of soldiers with kettledrums and trumpets,' and his eyes darkened, she thought, why should they grow up, and lose all that?
Language for me narrates the pictures in my mind. When I work on designing livestock equipment I can test run that equipment in my head like 3-D virtual reality. In fact, when I was in college I used to think that everybody was able to do that.
We don't need to 'control' free speech, we need to control ourselves.
Perhaps looking out through big baby eyes - if we could - would not be as revelatory experience as many imagine. We might see a world inhabited by objects and people, a world infused with causation, agency, and morality - a world that would surprise us not by its freshness but by its familiarity.
I saw firsthand what focusing on the wrong things, elevating the wrong people can do - the collateral damage that can be created by allowing somebody to live their lives without accountability.
Panic is rare, looting is essentially insignificant, people are not terrified and trampling each other to flee from a disaster scene, but in fact are trying to manage a situation. We may in fact revert to some sort of primordial civility.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.