David Hume Quotes

Found 96 quotes by David Hume.
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"A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere the careless, the most stupid thinker"

David Hume

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

David Hume

"In simple terms, the data shows that in mammals each individual gene uses multiple different mechanisms to produce different forms of protein. In a sense, each 'gene' is actually multiple different genes,"

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"

David Hume

"Among well-bred people a mutual deference is affected, contempt for others is disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation maintained without vehemence, without interruption, without eagernes"

David Hume

"The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy."

David Hume

"Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the ease with which the many are governed by the few"

David Hume

"The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds"

David Hume

"Custom, then, is the great guide of human life."

David Hume Topics: Custom Scottish Philosopher

"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 Topics: Experience

"Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the press."

David Hume Topics: Human Nature

"It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave."

David Hume Topics: Man Scottish Philosopher

"Such is the nature of novelty that where anything pleases it becomes doubly agreeable if new; but if it displeases, it is doubly displeasing on that very account"

David Hume Topics: Nature

"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 Topics: Folly

"Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients; action, pleasure and indolence. And though these ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according to the disposition of the person, yet no one ingredient can be entirely wanting without destroying in some measure the relish of the whole composition. composition."

David Hume Topics: Action Happiness

"I may venture to affirm the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement."

David Hume Topics: Rest

"Where ambition can cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of passions."

David Hume Topics: Ambition

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

David Hume Topics: Scottish Philosopher

"The sweetest and most inoffensive path of life leads through the avenues of science and learning; and whoever can either remove any obstruction in this way, or open up any new prospect, ought, so far, to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind"

David Hume

"Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding."

David Hume Topics: Scottish Philosopher

"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"

David Hume Topics: Office

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