Top 300 David Hume Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “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

202. “Avarice, the spur of industry.”

— David Hume

203. “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

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

— David Hume

205. “The confusion, in which impressions are sometimes involved, proceeds only from their faintness and unsteadiness, not from any capacity in the mind to receive any impression, which in its real existence has no particular degree nor proportion. That is a contradiction in terms; and even implies the flattest of all contradictions, viz. that it is possible for the same thing both to be and not to be.”

— David Hume

206. “Our senses inform us of the colour, weight, and consistence of bread; but neither sense nor reason can ever inform us of those qualities which fit it for the nourishment and support of a human body.”

— David Hume

207. “But where the ideas of morality and decency alter from one age to another, and where vicious manners are described, without being marked with the proper character of blame and disapprobation, this must be allowed to disfigure the poem, and to be a real deformity. I cannot, nor is it proper I should, enter into such sentiments; and however I may excuse the poet, on account of the manners of age, I can never relish the composition.”

— David Hume

208. “What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian, according to the experience, what we have had of mankind?”

— David Hume

209. “Men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions.”

— David Hume

210. “The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.”

— David Hume

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

— David Hume

212. “Nothing indeed can be a stronger presumption of falsehood than the approbation of the multitude.”

— David Hume

213. “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.”

— David Hume

214. “Any pride or haughtiness, is displeasing to us, merely because it shocks our own pride, and leads us by sympathy into comparison, which causes the disagreeable passion of humility.”

— David Hume

215. “As every inquiry which regards religion is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning it origin in human nature.”

— David Hume

216. “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.”

— David Hume

217. “No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed.”

— David Hume

218. “In all governments, there is a perpetual intestine struggle, open or secret, between authority and liberty; and neither of them can ever absolutely prevail in the contest.”

— David Hume

219. “However, since we have never observed the construction of a world or observed the world constructors, we have no way of knowing what causal relations might be involved in such a project; all we can do is construct hypotheses, without any way of judging which of these are more or less likely.”

— David Hume

220. “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.”

— David Hume

221. “Fine writing, according to Mr. Addison, consists of sentiments which are natural without being obvious.”

— David Hume

222. “We may conclude, therefore, that, in order to establish laws for the regulation of property, we must be acquainted with the nature and situation of man; must reject appearances, which may be false, though specious; and must search for those rules, which are, on the whole, most useful and beneficial.”

— David Hume

223. “Few enjoyments are given from the open and liberal hand of nature; but by art, labor and industry we can extract them in great abundance. Hence, the ideas of property become necessary in all civil society.”

— David Hume

224. “If the contemplation, even of inanimate beauty, is so delightful; if it ravishes the senses, even when the fair form is foreign tous: What must be the effects of moral beauty? And what influence must it have, when it embellishes our own mind, and is the result of our own reflection and industry?”

— David Hume

225. “The free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any environment.”

— David Hume

226. “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.”

— David Hume

227. “Disbelief in futurity loosens in a great measure the ties of morality, and may be for that reason pernicious to the peace of civil society.”

— David Hume

228. “Convulsions in nature, disorders, prodigies, miracles, though the most opposite of the plan of a wise superintendent, impress mankind with the strongest sentiments of religion.”

— David Hume

229. “Between married persons, the cement of friendship is by the laws supposed so strong as to abolish all division of possessions: andhas often, in reality, the force ascribed to it.”

— David Hume

230. “Liberty is a blessing so inestimable, that, wherever there appears any probability of recovering it, a nation may willingly run many hazards, and ought not even to repine at the greatest effusion of blood or dissipation of treasure.”

— David Hume

231. “Explanation is where the mind rests.”

— David Hume

232. “We may observe that, in displaying the praises of any humane, beneficent man, there is one circumstance which never fails to be amply insisted on, namely, the happiness and satisfaction, derived to society from his intercourse and good offices.”

— David Hume

233. “Theology, as it proves the existence of a Diety, and the immortality of souls, is composed partly of reasonings concerting particular partly concerning general fact. It has foundation in reason, so far as it is supported be experience. But it’s best and most solid foundation is faith and divine revelation.”

— David Hume

234. “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.”

— David Hume

235. “The face of the earth is continually changing, by the encrease of small kingdoms into great empires, by the dissolution of great empires into smaller kingdoms, by the planting of colonies, by the migration of tribes. Is there any thing discoverable in all these events, but force and violence? Where is the mutual agreement or voluntary association so much talked of?”

— David Hume

236. “The forming of general maxims from particular observation is a very nice operation; and nothing is more usual, from haste or a narrowness of mind, which sees not on all sides, than to commit mistakes in this particular.”

— David Hume

237. “Municipal laws are a supply to the wisdom of each individual; and, at the same time, by restraining the natural liberty of men, make private interest submit to the interest of the public.”

— David Hume

238. “Do you come to a philosopher as to a cunning man, to learn something by magic or witchcraft, beyond what can be known by common prudence and discretion?”

— David Hume

239. “The Divinity is a boundless Ocean of Bliss and Glory: Human minds are smaller streams, which, arising at first from the ocean, seek still, amid all wanderings, to return to it, and to lose themselves in that immensity of perfection. When checked in this natural course, by vice or folly, they become furious and enraged, and, swelling to a torrent, do then spread horror and devastation on the neighboring plains.”

— David Hume

240. “Let the errors and deceits of our very senses be set before us; the insuperable difficulties which attend first principles in all systems; the contradictions which adhere to the very ideas of matter, cause and effect, extension, space, time, motion; and, in a word, quantity of all kinds, the object of the only science that can fairly pretend to any certainty or evidence.”

— David Hume

241. “When we think back on our past sensations and feelings, our thought is a faithful mirror that copies its objects truly; but it does so in colours that are fainter and more washed-out than those in which our original perceptions were clothed.”

— David Hume

242. “It is more rational to suspect knavery and folly than to discount, at a stroke, everything that past experience has taught me about the way things actually work.”

— David Hume

243. “That students of philosophy ought first to learn logics, then ethics, next physics, last of all the nature of the gods.”1.”

— David Hume

244. “It cannot reasonably be doubted, but a little miss, dressed in a new gown for a dancing-school ball, receives as complete enjoyment as the greatest orator, who triumphs in the splendour of his eloquence, while he governs the passions and resolutions of a numerous assembly.”

— David Hume

245. “A mind whose acts and sentiments and ideas are not distinct and successive, one that is wholly simple and totally immutable, is a mind which has no thought, no reason, no will, no sentiment, no love, no hatred; or, in a word, is no mind at all.”

— David Hume

246. “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.”

— David Hume

247. “Art may make a suite of clothes, but nature must produce a man.”

— David Hume

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

— David Hume

249. “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.”

— David Hume

250. “Nothing more powerfully excites any affection than to conceal some part of its object, by throwing it into a kind of shade, whichat the same time that it shows enough to prepossess us in favour of the object, leaves still some work for the imagination.”

— David Hume