Quotes About Philosophy

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

The heart of man is made to reconcile the most glaring contradictions.

At present they [philosophers] seem to be in a very lamentable condition, and such as the poets have given us but a faint notion of in their descriptions of the punishment of Sisyphus and Tantalus. For what can be imagin'd more tormenting, than to seek with eagerness, what for ever flies us; and seek for it in a place, where 'tis impossible it can ever exist?

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.

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

?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.

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.

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.

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.

Belief doesn't consists in any special nature or order of ideas ·because the imagination has no limits with respect to those·, but rather in the manner of their conception and in their feeling to the mind. [...] In philosophy we can go no further than to assert that belief is something felt by the mind that distinguishes the ideas of the judgment from the fictions of the imagination.

When I look abroad, I foresee on every side dispute, contradiction, anger, calummy, and detraction, When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance (Hume, 1739, p.312)

I am first affrighted and confounded with that forelorn solitude, in which I am plac'd in my philosophy, and fancy myself some strange uncouth monster, who not being able to mingle and unite in society, has been expell'd all human commerce, and left utterly abandon'd and disconsolate. Fain wou'd I run into the crowd for shelter and warmth; but cannot prevail with myself to mix with such deformity.

I am first affrighted and confounded with that forelorn solitude, in which I am plac'd in my philosophy, and fancy myself some strange uncouth monster, who not being able to mingle and unite in society, has been expell'd all human commerce, and left utterly abandon'd and disconsolate (Hume, 1739, p. 312).

The rules of morality. therefore, are not conclusions of our reason. No one, I believe, will deny the justness of this inference; nor is there any other means of evading it, than by denying that principle, on which it is founded.

I am first affrighted and confounded with that forelorn solitude, in which I am plac'd in my philosophy, and fancy myself some strange uncouth monster, who not being able to mingle and unite in society, has been expell'd all human commerce, and left utterly abandon'd and disconsolate (Hume, 1739, p. 311-312).

Nada cierto podemos afirmar del mundo objetivo y del sujeto que lo mira, salvo que uno y otro son haces de percepciones instantáneas e inconexas ligadas por la memoria y la imaginación.

Bleib' nüchtern und vergiss' nicht, skeptisch zu sein!