Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.
Author
David Hume
37 quotations
About David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist and essayist who is known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical scepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beginning with A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Following John Locke, Hume rejected the existence of innate ideas, holding that all our ideas derive ultimately from impressions, but in his fork he d…
Read on Wikipedia → Find books by David HumeTruth springs from argument amongst friends.
This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.
Human Nature is the only science of man and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.
A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.
Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous those in philosophy only ridiculous.
The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.
The law always limits every power it gives.
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The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.
The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.
Human Nature is the only science of man and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.
Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.
There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it.
Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.
Men often act knowingly against their interest.
There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselv…
Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.
Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.
A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.
Belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain.
A propensity to hope and joy is real riches one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue.
There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselv…
A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.
Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.