21 quotes
Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few.
Siris (1744)
To be a good patriot, a man must consider his countrymen as God's creatures, and himself as accountable for his acting towards them.
Our youth we can have but to-day,
We may always find time to grow old.
Philosophy, being nothing but the study of wisdom and truth...
For Science it cannot be called, when you proceed blindfold, and arrive at the Truth not knowing how or by what means.
He who says that there is no such thing as an honest man is himself a knave.
Of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate. [Tar Water.]
The world is like a board with holes in it, and the square men have got into the round holes, and the round into the square.
Punch; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)
Abstract terms (however useful they may be in argument) should be discarded in meditation, and the mind should be fixed on the particular and the concrete, that is, on the things themselves.
De Motu (1721)
Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time's noblest offspring is the last.
For no one's authority ought to rank so high as to set a value on his words and terms even though nothing clear and determinate lies behind them.
De Motu (1721)
All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth—in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world—have not any subsistence without a mind.
The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime,
Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame.
On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America (1752)
Doth the reality of sensible things consist in being perceived? or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears no relation to the mind?
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)
In the pursuit of truth we must beware of being misled by terms which we do not rightly understand. That is the chief point. Almost all philosophers utter the caution; few observe it.
De Motu (1721)
And what are these same evanescent Increments? They are neither finite Quantities nor Quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing. May we not call them the Ghosts of departed Quantities?
That we have first rais'd a Dust, and then complain, we cannot see.
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710)
Solicitation and effort or conation belong properly to animate beings alone. When they are attributed to other things, they must be taken in a metaphorical sense; but a philosopher should abstain from metaphor.
De Motu (1721)
[Tar water] is of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution, as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate.
Siris (1744)
Few men think; yet all have opinions.
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)