He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.

Meaning of the quote

If someone says that honest people don't exist, you can be sure that they themselves are dishonest and trying to deceive others. This quote suggests that those who claim that honesty is impossible are likely the ones who are being dishonest and trying to hide their own lack of integrity.

About George Berkeley

George Berkeley was an Anglo-Irish philosopher known for his theory of ‘immaterialism’, which denies the existence of material substance. He made significant contributions to philosophy, including critiques of abstraction and Newton’s doctrine of absolute space, time, and motion.

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More quotes from George Berkeley

Many things, for aught I know, may exist, whereof neither I nor any other man hath or can have any idea or notion whatsoever.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

From my own being, and from the dependency I find in myself and my ideas, I do, by an act of reason, necessarily infer the existence of a God, and of all created things in the mind of God.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

If we admit a thing so extraordinary as the creation of this world, it should seem that we admit something strange, and odd, and new to human apprehension, beyond any other miracle whatsoever.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

So long as I confine my thoughts to my own ideas divested of words, I do not see how I can be easily mistaken.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

A mind at liberty to reflect on its own observations, if it produce nothing useful to the world, seldom fails of entertainment to itself.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

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 Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

The eye by long use comes to see even in the darkest cavern: and there is no subject so obscure but we may discern some glimpse of truth by long poring on it.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what every body will allow.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

That thing of hell and eternal punishment is the most absurd, as well as the most disagreeable thought that ever entered into the head of mortal man.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

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.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)

Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few.

George Berkeley

Irish idealist philosopher and Anglican bishop (1685-1753)