Quotes from David Hume

They all make up new species of crime and bring unhappiness in their train. When I hear a man is religious , I conclude he is a rascal , though I know some instances of very good men being religious .

Accurate and just reasoning is the only catholic remedy, fitted for all persons and all dispositions; and is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom. 8.

It is only from the selfishness and confined generosity of men, along with the scanty provision nature has made for his wants, that justice derives its origin.

It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity. - My Own Life

The beginning of motion in matter itself is as conceivable a priori as its communication from mind and intelligence.

It is well known, that, in all questions submitted to the understanding, prejudice is destructive of sound judgment, and perverts all operations of the intellectual faculties: it is no less contrary to good taste; nor has it less influence to corrupt our sentiment of beauty. It belongs to good sense to check its influence in both cases.

Whence can any cause be known but from its known effects? Whence can any hypothesis be proved but from the apparent phenomena? To establish one hypothesis upon another is building entirely in the air; and the utmost we ever attain by these conjectures and fictions is to ascertain the bare possibility of our opinion, but never can we, upon such terms, establish its reality.

When I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist.

?e smo prepri?ani, da ogenj greje ali da voda osvežuje, je to zgolj zato, ker bi nas misliti druga?e stalo preve? bole?ine.

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.

study of human nature was in a sorry state. While he had reservations about the ancient philosophers for depending 'more on Invention than Experience', he found modern philosophers –

metaphysics by showing that these theories are not just false, but unintelligible.

A man who hides himself, confesses as evidently the superiority of his enemy, as another who fairly delivers his arms.

There is a great difference between historical facts and speculative opinions ; nor is the knowledge of the one propagated in the same manner with that of the other

It is well known, that every government must come to a period, and that death is unavoidable to the political as well as to the animal body.

Secondly, we have several instances of habits, which may be revived by one single word; as when a person, who has by rote any periods of a discourse, or any number of verses, will be put in remembrance of the whole, which he is at a loss to recollect, by that single word or expression, with which they begin.

If only one can could know the essential natures of things, one might discover the ultimate reasons why they behave as they do: for the essential nature or essence of anything... if only it were truly adequate, all the behavioural properties of that thing must follow necessarily.

Thus if instead of saying, that in war the weaker have always recourse to negotiation, we should say, that they have always recourse to conquest, the custom, which we have acquired of attributing certain relations to ideas, still follows the words, and makes us immediately perceive the absurdity of that proposition; in the same manner as one particular idea may serve us in reasoning concerning other ideas, however different from it in several circumstances.

He insists that if we knew that God was all-good, we could account for the appearance of evil. However, we have to reason backward from our experience, which reflects a mixture of good and evil in the world. Philo contends that from what we experience, it is more likely that whatever being or force runs the world is morally neutral.

this subterfuge was nothing but the disguise of ignorance

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.

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.

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.

Commerce, . . . in my opinion, is apt to decay in absolute governments not because it is there less secure, but because it is less honourable.