Quotes from David Hume

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.

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.

The principles of every passion, and of every sentiment, is in every man; and when touched properly, they rise to life, and warm the heart, and convey that satisfaction, by which a work of genius is distinguished from the adulterate° beauties of a capricious wit and fancy.

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

Jika akan memilih buku apa saja, mari bertanya; Apakah di dalamnya terkandung penalaran abstrak mengenai kuantitas atau angka..? 'Tidak'. Apakah di situ terkandung penalaran eksperimental tentang kenyataan dan keberadaan..? 'Tidak'. Maka buanglah buku itu ke nyala api, sebab ia tak berisi apapun kecuali cara berpikir yang menyesatkan dan ilusi.

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.

judgments. A mistake, therefore, of right may become a species

Empires may rise and fall; liberty and slavery succeed alternately; ignorance and knowledge give place to each other; but the cherry-tree will still remain in the woods of Greece, Spain, and Italy, and will never be affected by the revolutions of human society.

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.

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.

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.

A propensity to hope and joy is real riches: One to fear and sorrow, real poverty.

this question depends upon the definition of the word, Nature, than which there is none more ambiguous and equivocal.

The worst speculative Sceptic ever I knew, was a much better Man than the best superstitious Devotee & Bigot." "I must inform you, too, that this was the way of thinking of the Antients on this Subject. If a Man made Proffession of Philosophy, whatever his Sect was, they alaways expected to find more Regulaity in his Life and Manners, than in those of ignorant & illiterate.

Hume argued powerfully that human reason is fundamentally similar to that of the other animals, founded on instinct rather than quasi-divine insight into things.

The victory is not gained by the men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters

Art may make a suit of clothes, but nature must produce a man.

Where then is the crime of turning a few ounces of blood from their natural channel?

The passion for philosophy, like that for religion, involves a certain danger. Although it aims to correct our behaviour and wipe out our vices, it may—through not being handled properly—end up merely encouraging us to carry on in directions that we're already naturally inclined to follow.

Explanation is where the mind rests.

What is easy and obvious is never valued; and even what is in itself difficult, if we come to the knowledge of it without difficulty, and without any stretch of thought or judgment, is but little regarded.

A great inferiority of beauty gives pain to a person conversant in the highest excellence of the kind, and is for that reason pronounced a deformity; as the most finished object with which we are acquainted is naturally supposed to have reached the pinnacle of perfection, and to be entitled to the highest applause.

Weakness, fear, melancholy, together with ignorance, are, therefore, the true sources of Superstition.

reasonings on this subject can only be drawn from effects to causes; and that every argument, deducted from causes to effects, must of necessity be a gross sophism; since it is impossible for you to know anything of the cause, but what you have antecedently, not inferred, but discovered to the full, in the effect.