David Hume Quotes - Page 11

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Everything is sold to skill and labor; and where nature furnishes the materials, they are still rude and unfinished, till industry, ever active and intelligent, refines them from their brute state, and fits them for human use and convenience.

David Hume

Intelligent, Skills, Rude

David Hume (1854). “The Philosophical Works of David Hume”, p.159

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We find in the course of nature that though the effects be many, the principles from which they arise are commonly few and simple, and that it is the sign of an unskilled naturalist to have recourse to a different quality in order to explain every different operation.

David Hume

Simple, Order, Words Of Wisdom

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Courage, of all national qualities, is the most precarious; because it is exerted only at intervals, and by a few in every nation; whereas industry, knowledge, civility, may be of constant and universal use, and for several ages, may become habitual to the whole people.

David Hume

Courage, People, Quality

David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.706, Delphi Classics

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Among well bred people a mutual deference is affected, contempt for others is disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation maintained without vehemence, without interruption, without eagerness for victory, and without any airs of superiority.

David Hume

Air, People, Victory

David Hume (1870). “Essays, Literary, Moral, and Political”, p.463

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A too great disproportion among the citizens weakens any state. Every person, if possible, ought to enjoy the fruits of his labour, in a full possession of all the necessities, and many of the conveniences of life. No one can doubt, but such an equality is most suitable to human nature, and diminishes much less from the happiness of the rich than it adds to that of the poor.

David Hume

Political, Doubt, Add

David Hume (1817). “Philosophical Essays: On Morals, Literature, and Politics”, p.284

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For as to the dispersing of Books, that Circumstance does perhaps as much harm as good: Since Nonsense flies with greater Celerity, and makes greater Impression than Reason; though indeed no particular species of Nonsense is so durable. But the several Forms of Nonsense never cease succeeding one another; and Men are always under the Dominion of some one or other, though nothing was ever equal in Absurdity and Wickedness to our present Patriotism.

David Hume

Book, Men, Wickedness

David Hume, J. Y. T. Greig (2011). “The Letters of David Hume:”, p.239, Oxford University Press, USA

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When we reflect on our past sentiments and affections, our thought is a faithful mirror, and copies its objects truly; but the colours which it employs are faint and dull, in comparison of those in which our original perceptions were clothed.

David Hume

Past, Mirrors, Faithful

David Hume, Eric Steinberg (1992). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding; [with] A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh; [and] An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature”, p.10, Hackett Publishing

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'Tis certain that a serious attention to the sciences and liberal arts softens and humanizes the temper, and cherishes those fine emotions in which true virtue and honor consist. It rarely, very rarely happens that a man of taste and learning is not, at least, an honest man, whatever frailties may attend him.

David Hume

Art, Honesty, Science

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In public affairs men are often better pleased that the truth, though known to everybody, should be wrapped up under a decent cover than if it were exposed in open daylight to the eyes of all the world.

David Hume

Eye, Men, World

David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.1807, Delphi Classics

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Let us become thoroughly sensible of the weakness, blindness, and narrow limits of human reason: Let us duly consider its uncertainty and endless contrarieties, even in subjects of common life and practice.... When these topics are displayed in their full light, as they are by some philosophers and almost all divines; who can retain such confidence in this frail faculty of reason as to pay any regard to its determinations in points so sublime, so abstruse, so remote from common life and experience?

David Hume

Determination, Practice, Light

David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.4014, Delphi Classics

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Jealousy is a painful passion; yet without some share of it, the agreeable affection of love has difficulty to subsist in its full force and violence.

David Hume

Jealousy, Passion, Violence

David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.1298, Delphi Classics

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Apart from the representational content of an idea there is another component: its force and vivacity, its impetus.

David Hume

Ideas, Force, Vivacity

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Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow.

David Hume

Ocean, Gay, Thinking

David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.4068, Delphi Classics

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No one can doubt, that the convention for the distinction of property, and for the stability of possession, is of all circumstances the most necessary to the establishment of human society, and that after the agreement for the fixing and observing of this rule, there remains little or nothing to be done towards settling a perfect harmony and concord.

David Hume

Agreement, Perfect, Doubt

David Hume (2003). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.349, Courier Corporation

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If the contemplation, even of inanimate beauty, is so delightful; if it ravishes the senses, even when the fair form is foreign tous: What must be the effects of moral beauty? And what influence must it have, when it embellishes our own mind, and is the result of our own reflection and industry?

David Hume

Beauty, Reflection, Mind

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The heroes in paganism correspond exactly to the saints in popery, and holy dervises in MAHOMETANISM. The place of, HERCULES, THESEUS, HECTOR, ROMULUS, is now supplied by DOMINIC, FRANCIS, ANTHONY, and BENEDICT. Instead of the destruction of monsters, the subduing of tyrants, the defence of our native country; whippings and fastings, cowardice and humility, abject submission and slavish obedience, are become the means of obtaining celestial honours among mankind.

David Hume

Country, Hero, Mean

David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.1245, Delphi Classics

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Where is the reward of virtue? and what recompense has nature provided for such important sacrifices as those of life and fortune, which we must often make to it? O sons of earth! Are ye ignorant of the value of this celestial mistress? And do ye meanly inquire for her portion, when ye observe her genuine beauty?

David Hume

Son, Sacrifice, Ignorant

David Hume, Stephen Copley, Andrew Edgar (2008). “Selected Essays”, p.90, Oxford University Press

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But I would still reply, that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature

David Hume

Believe, Men, Law

David Hume (2012). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p.139, tredition

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Upon the whole, necessity is something, that exists in the mind, not in objects; nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it, consider'd as a quality in bodies. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of thought to pass from cause to effects and effects to causes, according to their experienc'd union.

David Hume

Determination, Ideas, Mind

David Hume (2003). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.119, Courier Corporation

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To invent without scruple a new principle to every new phenomenon, instead of adapting it to the old; to overload our hypothesis with a variety of this kind, are certain proofs that none of these principles is the just one, and that we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth.

David Hume

Truth, Ignorance, Numbers

David Hume (2003). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.201, Courier Corporation

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Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose existence is demonstrable.

David Hume

Death, Afterlife, Being There

David Hume (2005). “Dialogues sur la religion naturelle”, p.244, Vrin

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When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?

David Hume

World, Stones, Coherence

David Hume (1824). “The Philosophical Works of David Hume ... Containing Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Essays on the Immortality of the Soul, Suicide ... &c. A New Edition”, p.6

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The proper office of religion is to regulate the heart of men, humanize their conduct, infuse the spirit of temperance, order, andobedience; and as its operation is silent, and only enforces the motives of morality and justice, it is in danger of being overlooked, and confounded with these other motives.

David Hume

Heart, Men, Order

David Hume, John Charles Addison Gaskin (1998). “Dialogues and Natural History of Religion”, p.122, Oxford University Press, USA

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The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modeled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.

David Hume

Happiness, Lonely, Art

David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.664, Delphi Classics

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Luxury, or a refinement on the pleasures and conveniences of life, had long been supposed the source of every corruption in government, and the immediate cause of faction, sedition, civil wars, and the total loss of liberty. It was, therefore, universally regarded as a vice, and was an object of declamation to all satyrists, and severe moralists.

David Hume

War, Loss, Luxury

David Hume (1751). “An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals”, p.30

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Born: May 7, 1711
Died: August 25, 1776
Occupation: Philosopher
Cite this Page: Citation

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