David Hume Quotes

Men often act knowingly against their interest... view

By: David Hume

That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise... view

By: David Hume

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

By: David Hume

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... view

By: David Hume

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

By: David Hume

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

By: David Hume

Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence... view

By: David Hume

Men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions... view

By: David Hume

No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed... view

By: David Hume

The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue... view

By: David Hume

There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it... view

By: David Hume

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... view

By: David Hume

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... view

By: David Hume

The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one... view

By: David Hume

The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst... view

By: David Hume

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny... view

By: David Hume

The law always limits every power it gives... view

By: David Hume

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

By: David Hume

It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom... view

By: David Hume

There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves... view

By: David Hume

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

By: David Hume

To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian... view

By: David Hume

To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see.. view

By: David Hume

Truth springs from argument amongst friends... view

By: David Hume

What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'... view

By: David Hume

The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster... view

By: David Hume

Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity... view

By: David Hume

A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century... view

By: David Hume

A propensity to hope and joy is real riches.. view

By: David Hume

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

By: David Hume

A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence... view

By: David Hume

It's when we start working together that the real healing takes place... it's when we start spilling our sweat, and not our blood... view

By: David Hume

And what is the greatest number? Number one... view

By: David Hume

It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once... view

By: David Hume

Avarice, the spur of industry... view

By: David Hume

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

By: David Hume

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them... view

By: David Hume

Beauty is no quality in things themselves. It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them... view

By: David Hume

Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived... view

By: David Hume

Human Nature is the only science of man.. view

By: David Hume

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... view

By: David Hume

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... view

By: David Hume