George Berkeley Quotes

...If there's a noise in the woods, and there's nobody around to hear it, is it really a noise?" "Of course it is," she replied calmly. "How did you reach that conclusion?" Beldin demanded. "Because there's no such thing as an empty place, uncle. There are always creatures around --wild animals, mice, insects, birds --and they can all hear." "But what if there weren't? What if the woods are truly empty?" "Why waste your time talking about an impossibility?

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, doesn't it just lie there and rot?

If no one heard your sounds then you did not really make them.

When millions of tons of angry elephant come spinning through the sky, and there was no one there to hear it, does it - philosopically speaking - make a noise

One of the recurring philosophical questions is: 'Does a falling tree in the forest make a sound when there is no one to hear?' Which says something about the nature of philosophers , because there is always someone in a forest. It may only be a badger, wondering what that cracking noise was, or a squirrel a bit puzzled by all the scenery going upwards, but someone.

I was once walking through the forest alone. A tree fell right in front of me - and I didn't hear it.

Would there be trees if we didn't see them?

I saw a tree fall in the woods, and I didn't hear it.

I secretly think reality exists so we can speculate about it.

There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

I love the outdoors and looking at snakes, squirrels, bugs - just going through the woods and being part of it. You can smell the different trees. And I listen. There's so much you can learn by listening, by sitting and watching things happen.

For a split second, Harry thought how absurd it was for Tonks to expect the dummy to hear her talking that quietly through a sheet of glass, when there were buses rumbling along behind her and all the racket of street full of shoppers. Then he reminded himself that dummies could not hear anyway.

It was in the forest. No one saw it or heard it. So did it actually happen?

There is nothing "ordinary" about reality.

The percept is the landscape before man, in the absence of man.

People aren't hearing all the music.

What canst thou see elsewhere which thou canst not see here? Behold the heaven and the earth and all the elements; for of these are all things created.

The greatest mystery of all is reality.

If the audience doesn't hear what is going on, is it going on?

The truth is generally seen, rarely heard.

Anybody who can't hear the difference between a ball hitting wood and a ball hitting concrete must be blind.

Beyond positive and negative, what is Reality?

Nothing may truly be said to be a miracle except in the profound sense that everything is a miracle.