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David Hume Quotes about Philosophy

All David Hume Quotes Affection Age Ambition Appearance Arrogance Art Atheism Beauty Belief Character Common Sense Constitution Corruption Country Curiosity Death Desire Determination Doubt Empathy Enthusiasm Ethics Evil Experience Feelings Friendship Genius Giving God Happiness Heart History Honesty Human Nature Humility Ignorance Imagination Imperfection Judgement Judgment Justice Knowledge Labor Learning Liberty Life Lying Mankind Morality Nature Office Pain Painting Passion Past Perception Philosophy quotes Pleasure Praise Purpose Quality Reality Reflection Religion Revenge Running Science Sorrow Soul Spring Study Truth Understanding Universe Virtue War Weakness

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

Philosophy, Philosophical, Government

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

Philosophy, Philosophical, Science

A Treatise upon Human Nature bk. 1 (1739)

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

Philosophy, Passion, Office

A Treatise upon Human Nature bk. 2 (1739)

A little philosophy makes a man an Atheist: a great deal converts him to religion

Atheist, Philosophy, Men

David Hume, John Charles Addison Gaskin (1998). “Dialogues and Natural History of Religion”, p.41, Oxford University Press, USA

Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.

Philosophy, Philosophical, Science

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.

Philosophy, Passion, Slave

A Treatise upon Human Nature bk. 2 (1739)

The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer: as perhaps the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of it. Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it.

Philosophy, Ignorance, Perfect

David Hume (1793). “Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects”, p.31

A man who has cured himself of all ridiculous prepossessions, and is fully, sincerely, and steadily convinced, from experience as well as philosophy, that the difference of fortune makes less difference in happiness than is vulgarly imagined; such a one does not measure out degrees of esteem according to the rent-rolls of his acquaintance. ... his internal sentiments are more regulated by the personal characters of men, than by the accidental and capricious favors of fortune.

Philosophy, Character, Men

And indeed nothing but the most determined scepticism, along with a great degree of indolence, can justify this aversion to metaphysics. For if truth be at all within the reach of human capacity, it is certain it must lie very deep and abstruse: and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous. I pretend to no such advantage in the philosophy I am going to unfold, and would esteem it a strong presumption against it, were it so very easy and obvious.

Strong, Pain, Philosophy

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.306

The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.

Philosophy, Philosophical, Views

'Four Dissertations' (1757) 'The Natural History of Religion' sect. 15

I shall venture to affirm, that there never was a popular religion, which represented the state of departed souls in such a light,as would render it eligible for human kind, that there should be such a state. These fine models of religion are the mere product of philosophy. For as death lies between the eye and the prospect of futurity, that event is so shocking to nature, that it must throw a gloom on all the regions which lie beyond it; and suggest to the generality of mankind the idea of Cerberus and Furies; devils, and torrents of fire and brimstone.

Death, Lying, Philosophy

David Hume, John Charles Addison Gaskin (1998). “Dialogues and Natural History of Religion”, p.127, Oxford University Press, USA

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

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

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

Reasoning from the common course of nature, and without supposing any new interposition of the Supreme Cause, which ought always to be excluded from philosophy; what is incorruptible must also be ingenerable. The soul, therefore, if immortal, existed before our birth: And if the former existence noways concerned us, neither will the latter.

Philosophy, Soul, Causes

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.116

What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present it on all occasions; but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.

Philosophy, Brain, Sound

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.24

It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have preference above the accurate.

Philosophy, Easy, Certain

David Hume, Tom L. Beauchamp (2000). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: A Critical Edition”, p.6, Oxford University Press

The observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it.

Philosophy, Weakness, Elude

David Hume (1861). “Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding ... Second edition. With additions and corrections”, p.20

The stability of modern governments above the ancient, and the accuracy of modern philosophy, have improved, and probably will still improve, by similar gradations.

Philosophy, Government, Ancient

David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.963, Delphi Classics

There is, indeed a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are corrected by common sense and reflection.

Philosophy, Reflection, Common Sense

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.111, Hackett Publishing

And as this is the obvious appearance of things, it must be admitted, till some hypothesis be discovered, which by penetrating deeper into human nature, may prove the former affections to be nothing but modifications of the latter. All attempts of this kind have hitherto proved fruitless, and seem to have proceeded entirely from that love of simplicity which has been the source of much false reasoning in philosophy.

Philosophy, Simplicity, Words Of Wisdom

David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects”, p.402

Accurate and just reasoning is the only catholic remedy, fitted for all persons and all dispositions; and is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom.

Philosophy, Air, Giving

David Hume (1854). “The Philosophical Works of David Hume: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Pub. by the Author”, p.9

All the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and...however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of MAN; since they lie under the cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and faculties.

Running, Philosophy, Lying

It seems then, say I, that you leave politics entirely out of the question, and never suppose, that a wise magistrate can justly be jealous of certain tenets of philosophy, such as those of Epicurus, which, denying a divine existence, and consequently a providence and a future state, seem to loosen, in a great measure, the ties of morality, and may be supposed, for that reason, pernicious to the peace of civil society.

Wise, Philosophy, Jealous

David Hume, Tom L. Beauchamp (2000). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: A Critical Edition”, p.101, Oxford University Press

The chief benefit, which results from philosophy, arises in an indirect manner, and proceeds more from its secret, insensible influence, than from its immediate application.

Philosophy, Secret, Benefits

David Hume (1825). “Essays and treatises on several subjects: essays, moral, political and literary”, p.167

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