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David Hume Quotes - Page 8

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All inferences from experience... are effects of custom, not of reasoning.

All inferences from experience... are effects of custom, not of reasoning.

Inference, Effects, Reasoning

"An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding". Book by David Hume, V: Skeptical Solution of these Doubts, Part I, 1739 - 1740.

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.

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

Berkeley , Hume, Kant , Fichte , Hegel , James , Bergson all are united in one earnest attempt, the attempt to reinstate man with his high spiritual claims in a place of importance in the cosmic scheme.

Spiritual, Men, Hegel

In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

Wise, Men, Facts

David Hume (1784). “Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects”, p.118

Almost every one has a predominant inclination, to which his other desires and affections submit, and which governs him, though perhaps with some intervals, though the whole course of his life.

Desire, Affection, Submit

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

While Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed at the same time the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy; and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity, in which they ever did and ever will remain.

Nature, Philosophy, Science

David Hume (1759). “The Commonwealth, and the reigns of Charles II. and James II”, p.450

.. that which renders morality an active principle and constitutes virtue our happiness, and vice our misery: it is probable, I say, that this final sentence depends on some internal sense or feeling, which nature has made universal in the whole species.

Feelings, Vices, Principles

David Hume, Tom L. Beauchamp (2006). “An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals: A Critical Edition”, p.5, Oxford University Press

To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.

Order, Atheism, Unexpected

David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition”, p.368

Such a superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits the pre-eminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.

Mediocrity, Literature, Occupation

David Hume (1782). “The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688”, p.197

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

Pregnancy, Ethics, Morality

Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.

Strong, Philosophy, Philosophical

David Hume (1999). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p.39, Open Court

I say then, that belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination.

Taken, Passion, Reality

David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition”, p.311

If nature has been frugal in her gifts and endowments, there is the more need of art to supply her defects. If she has been generous and liberal, know that she still expects industry and application on our part, and revenges herself in proportion to our negligent ingratitude. The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the pleasure and use of man, produces, to its slothful owner, the most abundant crop of poisons.

Weed, Art, Revenge

David Hume (1817). “Philosophical Essays: On Morals, Literature, and Politics”, p.166

Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact; it must be acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors.

Errors, Matter, Facts

David Hume, Eric Steinberg (1993). “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.73, Hackett Publishing

the senses alone are not implicitly to be depended on. We must correct their evidence by reason, and by considerations, derived from the nature of the medium, the distance of the object, and the disposition of the organ, in order to render them, within their sphere, the proper criteria of truth and falsehood.

Distance, Order, Spheres

David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.1058, Delphi Classics

Accuracy is, in every case, advantageous to beauty, and just reasoning to delicate sentiment. In vain would we exalt the one by depreciating the other.

Sentimental, Vain, Cases

David Hume (2012). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p.4, Courier Corporation

Every court of criminal justice must have the power of correcting the greatest and dangerous of all abuses of the forms of law - that of the protracted imprisonment of the accused, untried, perhaps not intended ever to be tried, it may be, not informed of the nature of the charge against him, or the name of the accuser.

Law, Names, Justice

Avarice, the spur of industry, is so obstinate a passion, and works its way through so many real dangers and difficulties, that it is not likely to be scared by an imaginary danger, which is so small, that it scarcely admits of calculation. Commerce, therefore, in my opinion, is apt to decay in absolute governments, not because it is there less secure, but because it is less honourable.

Real, Passion, Government

'Essays' (1741-2) 'Of Civil Liberty'

But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country.

Country, Men, Miracle

David Hume (2012). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p.123, tredition

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

School, Math, Numbers

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding sec. 12, pt. 3 (1748)

And though the philosopher may live remote from business, the genius of philosophy, if carefully cultivated by several, must gradually diffuse itself throughout the whole society, and bestow a similar correctness on every art and calling.

Art, Philosophy, Political

David Hume (1826). “The Philosophical Works: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Ed. Publ. by the Author”, p.9

All morality depends upon our sentiments; and when any action or quality of the mind pleases us after a certain manner we say it is virtuous; and when the neglect or nonperformance of it displeases us after a like manner, we say that we lie under an obligation to perform it.

Lying, Mind, Quality

David Hume (2010). “Moral and Political Philosophy”, p.142, Simon and Schuster

Though men of delicate taste be rare, they are easily to be distinguished in society by the soundness of their understanding, and the superiority of their faculties above the rest of mankind.

Men, Understanding, Culture

David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.1314, Delphi Classics

The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty; and, by proper representations of the deformity of vice and beauty of virtue, beget correspondent habits, and engage us to avoid the one, and embrace the other.

Vices, Morality, Virtue

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

Enthusiasm produces the most cruel disorders in human society; but its fury is like that of thunder and tempest, which exhaust themselves in a little time, and leave the air more calm and serene than before.

Air, Littles, Enthusiasm

David Hume (1788). “Essays, moral, political, and literary.- v. 2. An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion”, p.72

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