David Hume Quotes - Page 6

Quotes about:

• Human Nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.

  David Hume

  Philosophical, Men, Human Nature

  David Hume (2015). “A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.209, 谷月社

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• If we confine ourselves to a general and distant reflection on the ills of human life, that can have no effect to prepare us for them. If by close and intense meditation we render them present and intimate to us, that is the true secret for poisoning all our pleasures, and rendering us perpetually miserable.

  David Hume

  Life, Death, Reflection

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.683, Delphi Classics

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• How can we satisfy ourselves without going on in infinitum? And, after all, what satisfaction is there in that infinite progression? Let us remember the story of the Indian philosopher and his elephant. It was never more applicable than to the present subject. If the material world rests upon a similar ideal world, this ideal world must rest upon some other; and so on, without end. It were better, therefore, never to look beyond the present material world.

  David Hume

  Elephants, Looks, Stories

  David Hume (2013). “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion”, p.31, Courier Corporation

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• The fact that different cultures have different practices no more refutes [moral] objectivism than the fact that water flows in different directions in different places refutes the law of gravity

  David Hume

  Law, Practice, Water

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• We have no other notion of cause and effect, but that of certain objects, which have always conjoin'd together, and which in all past instances have been found inseparable. We cannot penetrate into the reason of the conjunction. We only observe the thing itself, and always find that from the constant conjunction the objects acquire an union in the imagination.

  David Hume

  Science, Past, Imagination

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• No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed.

  David Hume

  Philosophical, World, Advantage

  David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition”, p.81

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• .. the voice of nature and experience seems plainly to oppose the selfish theory.

  David Hume

  Selfish, Voice, Ethics

  David Hume (1768). “An enquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An enquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion”, p.296

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• A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.

  David Hume

  Stupid, Philosophical, Design

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• To philosopher and historian the madness and imbecile wickedness of mankind ought to appear ordinary events.

  David Hume

  Stupidity, Events, Ordinary

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• A wise man's kingdom is his own breast: or, if he ever looks farther, it will only be to the judgment of a select few, who are free from prejudices, and capable of examining his work. Nothing indeed can be a stronger presumption of falsehood than the approbation of the multitude; and Phocion, you know, always suspected himself of some blunder when he was attended with the applauses of the populace.

  David Hume

  Wise, Men, Stronger

  David Hume, J. Y. T. Greig (2011). “The Letters of David Hume: 1727-1765”, p.305, Oxford University Press, USA

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• No human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any such system of religion

  David Hume

  Miracle, Foundation, Force

  David Hume, Richard H. Popkin (1998). “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Second Edition)”, p.122, Hackett Publishing

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• This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.

  David Hume

  Possession, Goods, Insatiable

  David Hume, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord “Moral Philosophy”, Hackett Publishing

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• Heroism, or military glory, is much admired by the generality of mankind. They consider it as the most sublime kind of merit. Menof cool reflection are not so sanguine in their praises of it.

  David Hume

  Military, Reflection, Sublime

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.521, Delphi Classics

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• We learn the influence of our will from experience alone. And experience only teaches us, how one event constantly follows another; without instructing us in the secret connexion, which binds them together, and renders them inseparable.

  David Hume

  Secret, Experience, Together

  David Hume (2016). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: Revision of Great Book”, p.51, VM eBooks

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• Your corn is ripe today, mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both that I should labor with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow. I have no kindness for you, and know you have as little for me. I will not, therefore, take any pains upon your account . . . Here then I leave you to labor alone; you treat me in the same manner. The seasons change, and both of us lose our harvests for want of mutual confidence and security.

  David Hume

  Pain, Kindness, Volunteer

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• I cannot but bless the memory of Julius Caesar, for the great esteem he expressed for fat men and his aversion to lean ones.

  David Hume

  Memories, Men, Aversion

  John Hill Burton, David Hume (1983). “Life and Correspondence of David Hume”, Facsimiles-Garl

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• But the most common species of love is that which first arises from beauty, and afterwards diffuses itself into kindness and into the bodily appetite. Kindness or esteem, and the appetite to generation, are too remote to unite easily together. The one is, perhaps, the most refined passion of the soul; the other the most gross and vulgar. The love of beauty is placed in a just medium betwixt them, and partakes of both their natures: From whence it proceeds, that it is so singularly fitted to produce both.

  David Hume

  Love, Kindness, Passion

  David Hume (2015). “A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.296, 谷月社

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• The first ideas of religion arose, not from contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life.

  David Hume

  Ideas, Events, Firsts

  David Hume (2016). “The Natural History of Religion: Revision of Great Book”, p.7, VM eBooks

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• Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.

  David Hume

  Philosophical, Growth, Divinity

  David Hume (1826). “The history of England: From the invasion of Julius Caesar to the revolution of 1688 : To which is prefixed a short account of his life, written by himself”, p.187

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• Enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of liberty; as superstition,on the contrary, renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery.

  David Hume

  Men, Liberty, Ambitious

  David Hume (1875). “Essays Moral, Political, and Literary”, p.149

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• In all matters of opinion and science ... the difference between men is ... oftener found to lie in generals than in particulars; and to be less in reality than in appearance. An explication of the terms commonly ends the controversy, and the disputants are surprised to find that they had been quarrelling, while at bottom they agreed in their judgement.

  David Hume

  Lying, Science, Reality

  'Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary' (ed. T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, 1875) 'Of the Standard of Taste' (1757)

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• The minds of men are mirrors to one another, not only because they reflect each other's emotions, but also because those rays of passions, sentiments and opinions may be often reverberated, and may decay away by insensible degrees.

  David Hume

  Passion, Men, Mirrors

  David Hume (1874). “A Treatise on Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning Into Moral Subjects; and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion”, p.152

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• There has been a controversy started of late, much better worth examination, concerning the general foundation of Morals; whether they be derived from Reason, or from Sentiment; whether we attain the knowledge of them by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feeling and finer internal sense; whether, like all sound judgement of truth and falsehood, they should be the same to every rational intelligent being; or whether, like the perception of beauty and deformity, they be founded entirely on the particular fabric and constitution of the human species.

  David Hume

  Intelligent, Perception Of Beauty, Judgement

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• No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.

  David Hume

  Religious, Reality, Miracle

  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding "Of Miracles" (1748)

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• It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause; for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age. But to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing

  David Hume

  Wise, Men, Age

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