David Hume Philosophical Quotations

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.

Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.

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

What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'.

A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.

Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.

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

The law always limits every power it gives.

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

Everything in the world is purchased by labor.

And what is the greatest number? Number one.

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.

To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.

Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived.

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

No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed.

Human Nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.

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?

The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.

Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness; and if these be favourable to virtue and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behavior.

The conduct of a man, who studies philosophy in this careless manner, is more truly sceptical than that of any one, who feeling inhimself an inclination to it, is yet so over-whelm'd with doubts and scruples, as totally to reject it. A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them.

When any opinion leads us into absurdities, 'tis certainly false; but 'tis not certain an opinion is false, because 'tis of dangerous consequence.

THERE is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavour the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false; but it is not certain that an opinion is false, because it is of dangerous consequence. Such topics, therefore, ought entirely to be forborne; as serving nothing to the discovery of truth, but only to make the person of an antagonist odious.

Truth springs from argument amongst friends.

Men often act knowingly against their interest.

..when, in my philosophical disquisitions, I deny a providence and a future state, I undermine not the foundations of society, but advance principles, which they themselves, upon their own topics, if they argue consistently, must allow to be solid and satisfactory.

Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.