George Berkeley Quotes

He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

For those who do not think, it is best at least to rearrange their prejudices once in a while.

For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.

To assume that someone's views are invariably influenced or shaped by his or her partner is lazy. It is an intellectual crutch we grope for when we do not have an effective counter to someone's argument.

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, and the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well.

If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do.

It isn't what people think that is important, but the reason they think what they think.

Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.

Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise.

there are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?

We do not at present educate people to think but, rather, to have opinions, and that is something altogether different.

Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public think so.

Opinion is something wherein I go about to give reasons why all the world should think as I think.

I have heard it remarked that men are not to be reasoned out of an opinion they have not reasoned themselves into.

It is often very illuminating...to ask yourself how you got at the facts on which you base your opinion. Who actually saw, heard, felt, counted, named the thing, about which you have an opinion?

I must be allowed to add some explanatory remarks to bring the subject home to reason-to that sluggish reason, which supinely takes opinions on trust, and obstinately supports them to spare itself the labour of thinking.

Not thinking critically, I assumed that the successful prayers were proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof that there was something wrong with me.

The human mind can hardly remain entirely free from bias, and decisive opinions are often formed before a thorough examination of a subject from all its aspects has been made.

The polls undoubtedly help to decide what people think, but their most important long-term influence may be on how people think. The interrogative process is very distinctly weighted against the asking of an intelligent question or the recording of a thoughtful answer.

When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate.

To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought.

Critiquing relieves you of the responsibility of doing integrative thinking.