Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists

“I know what I mean by the term I and myself; and I know this immediately, or intuitively, though I do not perceive it as I perceive a triangle, a colour, or a sound.””

— George Berkeley

“truly my opinion is, that all our opinions are alike vain and uncertain. what we approve today, we condemn tomorrow. we keep a stir about knowledge, and spend our lives in the pursuit of it, when, alas! we know nothing all the while: nor do i think it possible for us to ever know anything in this life. our faculties are too narrow and too few. nature certainly never intended us for speculation.””

— George Berkeley

“My inference will be that you mean nothing at all. That you employ words to no manner or purpose without any design or signification whatsoever. And I leave it to you to consider how mere jargon should be treated.””

— George Berkeley

“Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other cold, and that they are both at once put into the same vessel of water, in an intermediate state, will not the water seem cold to one hand, and warm to the other?””

— George Berkeley

“I give up the point for the present, reserving still a right to detract my opinion in case I shall hereafter discover any false step in my progress to it.””

— George Berkeley

“I see this cherry, I feel it, I taste it: and I am sure NOTHING cannot be seen, or felt, or tasted: it is therefore red. Take away the sensations of softness, moisture, redness, tartness, and you take away the cherry, since it is not a being distinct from sensations. A cherry, I say, is nothing but a congeries of sensible impressions, or ideas perceived by various senses: which ideas are united into one thing (or have one name given them) by the mind, because they are observed to attend each other. Thus, when the palate is affected with such a particular taste, the sight is affected with a red colour, the touch with roundness, softness, &c. Hence, when I see, and feel, and taste, in such sundry certain manners, I am sure the cherry exists, or is real; its reality being in my opinion nothing abstracted from those sensations. But if by the word CHERRY you, mean an unknown nature, distinct from all those sensible qualities, and by its EXISTENCE something distinct from its being perceived; then, indeed, I own, neither you nor I, nor any one else, can be sure it exists.””

— George Berkeley