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
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?
Interpretation
Perception shapes reality; without an observer, existence is questioned.
This quote by George Berkeley emphasizes the idea that existence is closely tied to perception. According to Berkeley, something only exists if it is experienced or perceived by someone; hence, if an event occurs without anyone to observe it, its existence becomes contested. This challenges us to think about the nature of reality and how our perceptions define what we understand to be real.
In practice
This quote can be used in a philosophical discussion about the nature of reality at a book club.
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.
Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.
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.
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.
Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read more and thought less about money.
The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form...The perfect surrender and humiliation was undergone by Christ: perfect because He was God, surrender and humiliation because He was man.
I don't believe that in the name of the holiness of the city you have to put barbed wires, machine gun nests, mine pins and everything of that, in the name of the holiness of Jerusalem.
If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.
It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be left alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.
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