Top 300 David Hume Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “The bigotry of theologians is a malady which seems almost incurable.”

— David Hume

152. “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.”

— David Hume

153. “Praise never gives us much pleasure unless it concur with our own opinion, and extol us for those qualities in which we chiefly excel.”

— David Hume

154. “If we see a house, CLEANTHES, we conclude, with the greatest certainty, that it had an architect or builder; because this is precisely that species of effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species of cause. But surely you will not affirm, that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house, that we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect.”

— David Hume

155. “Stercus accidit.”

— David Hume

156. “The victory is not gained by the men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters, drummers, and musicians of the army.”

— David Hume

157. “If morality had naturally no influence on human passions and actions, it were in vain to take such pains to inculcate it; and nothing would be more fruitless than that multitude of rules and precepts with which all moralists abound.”

— David Hume

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

— David Hume

159. “When we reflect on the shortness and uncertainty of life, how despicable seem all our pursuits of happiness.”

— David Hume

160. “When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me; though such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by the approbation of others.”

— David Hume

161. “Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.”

— David Hume

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

— David Hume

163. “I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another.”

— David Hume

164. “We make allowance for a certain degree of selfishness in men; because we know it to be inseparable from human nature, and inherent in our frame and constitution. By this reflexion we correct those sentiments of blame, which so naturally arise upon any opposition.”

— David Hume

165. “The great charm of poetry consists in lively pictures of the sublime passions, magnanimity, courage, disdain of fortune; or thoseof the tender affections, love and friendship; which warm the heart, and diffuse over it similar sentiments and emotions.”

— David Hume

166. “Can you pretend to show any such similarity between the fabric of a house and the generation of a universe? Have you ever seen Nature in any such situation as resembles the first arrangement of the elements? Have worlds ever been formed under your eye, and have you had leisure to observe the whole progress of the phenomenon, from the first appearance of order to its final consummation? If you have, then cite your experience and deliver your theory.”

— David Hume

167. “Rousseau was mad but influential; Hume was sane but had no followers.”

— David Hume

168. “Nature is always too strong for principle.”

— David Hume

169. “The greater part of mankind may be divided into two classes; that of shallow thinkers who fall short of the truth; and that of abstruse thinkers who go beyond it.”

— David Hume

170. “Obscurity, indeed, is painful to the mind as well as to the eye; but to bring light from obscurity, by whatever labour, must needsbe delightful and rejoicing.”

— David Hume

171. “How can anything that exists from eternity have a cause, since that relation implies a priority in time and a beginning of existence?”

— David Hume

172. “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.”

— David Hume

173. “Avarice, or the desire of gain, is a universal passion which operates at all times, at all places, and upon all persons.”

— David Hume

174. “I never asserted such an absurd thing as that things arise without a cause.”

— David Hume

175. “Delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion; it enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and our misery.”

— David Hume

176. “Beyond the constant conjunction of similar objects, and the consequent inference from one to the other, we have no notion of any necessity, or connexion.”

— David Hume

177. “Abstruse thought and profound researches I prohibit, and will severely punish, by the pensive melancholy which they introduce, by the endless uncertainty in which they involve you, and by the cold reception which your pretended discoveries shall meet with, when communicated. Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.”

— David Hume

178. “That the corruption of the best thing produces the worst, is grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among other instances, by the pernicious effects of superstition and enthusiasm, the corruptions of true religion.”

— David Hume

179. “All beliefs about matters of fact or real existence are derived merely from something that is present to the memory or senses, and a customary association of that with some other thing.”

— David Hume

180. “In this sullen apathy neither true wisdom nor true happiness can be found.”

— David Hume

181. “Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?”

— David Hume

182. “Reasonable men may be allowed to differ where no one can reasonably be positive: Opposite sentiments, even without any decision, afford an agreeable amusement; and if the subject be curious and interesting, the book carries us, in a manner, into company, and unites the two greatest and purest pleasures of human life: study and society.”

— David Hume

183. “An infinite number of real parts of time, passing in succession, and exhausted one after another, appears so evident a contradiction, that no man, one should think, whose judgement is not corrupted, instead of being improved, by the sciences, would ever be able to admit of it.”

— David Hume

184. “Not to mention that a crown is too high a reward ever to be given to merit alone, and will always induce the candidates to employ force, or money, or intrigue, to procure the votes of the electors: so that such an election will give no better chance for superior merit in the prince, than if the state had trusted to birth alone for determining the sovereign.”

— David Hume

185. “All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.”

— David Hume

186. “In all the events of life, we ought still to preserve our scepticism. If we believe that fire warms, or water refreshes, it is only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise.”

— David Hume

187. “Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting.”

— David Hume

188. “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.”

— David Hume

189. “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

190. “Even after the observation of the frequent conjunction of objects, we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have had experience.”

— David Hume

191. “An ideal system, arranged of itself, without a precedent design, is not a whit more explicable than a material one which attains its order in a like manner; nor is there any more difficulty in the latter supposition than in the former.”

— David Hume

192. “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.”

— David Hume

193. “If refined sense, and exalted sense, be not so useful as common sense, their rarity, their novelty, and the nobleness of their objects, make some compensation, and render them the admiration of mankind.”

— David Hume

194. “Friendship is a calm and sedate affection, conducted by reason and cemented by habit; springing from long acquaintance and mutual obligations, without jealousies or fears, and without those feverish fits of heat and cold, which cause such an agreeable torment in the amorous passion.”

— David Hume

195. “All power, even the most despotic, rests ultimately on opinion.”

— David Hume

196. “Virtue, like wholesome food, is better than poisons, however corrected.”

— David Hume

197. “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

198. “Nothing is more admirable, than the readiness, with which the imagination suggests its ideas, and presents them at the very instant, in which they become necessary or useful.”

— David Hume

199. “When I am convinced of any principle, it is only an idea which strikes more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence.”

— David Hume

200. “The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.”

— David Hume