Top 100 Hume Quotes
#2. The sun will rise tomorrow morning; I know that perfectly well. But figuring out how I could know it is, as Hume pointed out, a bit of a puzzle.
Jerry A. Fodor
#3. When Friedrich Nietzsche mocked Immanuel Kant for having "discovered a moral faculty in man", he inadvertently resolved Kant's dilemma of being unable to identify what exactly constituted his "moral law" for fear of offending against a charge of empiricism from the likes of David Hume.
Joseph B.H. McMillan
#4. Hume develops his arguments by a series of models. He doesn't call them models in the pretentious way in which we envelope, very often, pure banalities in this jargon
Lionel Robbins, Baron Robbins
#5. Hume believed that reason was (and was only fit to be) the servant of the passions.
Jonathan Haidt
#6. Even David Hume, one of history most famous skeptics, said it's just barely possible that God exists.
Peter Kreeft
#7. Live your dreams, not your fears! A.Hume
Albina Hume
#8. Democrats all claim they'll get rough with the terrorists, but they can't even face Brit Hume.
Ann Coulter
#9. David Hume, who wrote in 1739 that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
Jonathan Haidt
#10. I freely admit that the remembrance of David Hume was the very thing that many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave a completely different direction to my researches in the field of speculative philosophy.
Immanuel Kant
#11. If, like Hume, I had all manner of adornment in my power, I would still have reservations about using them. It is true that some readers will be scared off by dryness. But isn't it necessary to scare off some if in their case the matter would end up in bad hands?
Immanuel Kant
#12. The "I" is a grammatical fiction (Nietzsche). There are bundles of impressions but no underlying self (Hume). There is no survival because there is no person (Buddha, Parfit).
Max More
#13. The existing premises, wholly altered by geologic science, are no longer those of Hume. The foot-print in the sand-to refer to his happy illustration-does now stand alone. Instead of one, we see many footprints, each in turn in advance of the print behind it, and on a higher level.
Hugh Miller
#14. I have always considered David Hume as approaching as nearly the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will allow.
Adam Smith
#15. [On David Hume]
Although he never admitted to being an atheist as such, he was clearly and unquestionably the most vividly elegant skeptic of them all.
Jonathan Miller
#16. In every page of David Hume, there is more to be learned than from Hegel's, Herbart's and Schleiermacher's complete philosophical works.
Arthur Schopenhauer
#17. I have used the philosophers' ideas for my own private literary purposes, but I don't think that I'm a thinker. I suppose that my thinking has been done for me by Berkeley, by Hume, by Schopenhauer, by Mauthner perhaps.
Jorge Luis Borges
#18. A philosophy professor at my college, whose baby became enamored of the portrait of David Hume on a Penguin paperback, had the cover laminated in plastic so her daughter could cut her teeth on the great thinker.
Anne Fadiman
#19. The first-cause and prime-mover argument, brilliantly proffered by St. Thomas Aquinas in the fourteenth century (and brilliantly refuted by David Hume in the eighteenth century), is easily turned aside with just one more question: Who or what caused and moved God?
Michael Shermer
#20. 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.
David Hume
#21. No real blood flows in the veins of the knowing subject constructed by Locke, Hume, and Kant, but rather the diluted extract of reason as a mere activity of thought.
Wilhelm Dilthey
#22. God can intervene in the universe he created despite what David Hume says.
Norman L. Geisler
#23. Poor David Hume is dying fast, but with more real cheerfulness and good humor and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things, than any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.
Adam Smith
#24. Most humans know their own "reason" only in the sense that Hume defined it, as "a slave to the passions"-and by "passions" he meant not moral passions or the passions of transcendent genius, but only low appetites or base desires, which society and economy ultimately shape and spur on in us.
Kenny Smith
#25. I think it was David Hume who put it slightly vulgarly, this was again about the virgin birth I think. Which is more likely ... that the whole natural order is suspended or that a Jewish minx should tell a lie?
Christopher Hitchens
#26. The theory of interest was wrapped in utter obscurity, until Hume and Smith dispelled the vapor.
Jean-Baptiste Say
#27. Kant's philosophy states that it is inherent in us. He agreed with Hume that we cannot know with certainty what the world is like "in itself." We can only know the what the world is like "for me" of for everybody.
Jostein Gaarder
#28. And where else will [Hume,] this degenerate son of science, this traitor to his fellow men, find the origin of just powers, if not in the majority of the society? Will it be in the minority? Or in an individual of that minority?
Thomas Jefferson
#29. Berkeley , Hume, Kant , Fichte , Hegel , James , Bergson all are united in one earnest attempt, the attempt to reinstate man with his high spiritual claims in a place of importance in the cosmic scheme.
David Hume
#30. Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained, after his time, but mind; which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737.
Sydney Smith
#31. Hume is thus led to the view that, when we say 'A causes B', we mean only that A and B are constantly conjoined in fact, not that there is some necessary connection between them.
Bertrand Russell
#32. Gradually the conviction gained recognition that all knowledge about things is exclusively a working-over of the raw material furnished by the senses ... Galileo and Hume first upheld this principle with full clarity and decisiveness.
Albert Einstein
#33. I would guess it didn't exactly represent a profile in courage for the vice president to wander over there to the F-word network for a sit down with Brit Hume. I mean, that's a little like Bonnie interviewing Clyde, ain't it?
Jack Cafferty
#34. Reason is and ought to be, as Hume said, the slave of the passions.
Edward Abbey
#35. And, according to that Hume guy, the fact that I had until now woken up every morning in the same body, into the same world, where what had happened had actually happened, was no guarantee that the same thing would happen again tomorrow morning.
Jo Nesbo
#36. What Hitchens should have written is: I wouldn't know the difference between conceptualism and realism, essentially and accidentally ordered causal series, Aristotle and Hume, etc., even if I were intellectually honest; but then, neither will the book reviewer at the New York Times, so who cares?
Edward Feser
#37. I question if Epicurus and Hume have done mankind a greater service by the looseness of their doctrines than by the purity of their lives. Of such men we may more justly exclaim, than of Caesar, Confound their virtues, they've undone the world!
Charles Caleb Colton
#38. If I want to know how we learn and remember and represent the world, I will go to psychology and neuroscience. If I want to know where values come from, I will go to evolutionary biology and neuroscience and psychology, just as Aristotle and Hume would have, were they alive.
Patricia Churchland
#39. Nature and society are so replete with startling contrasts that wit often consists in the mere statement and comparison of facts, as when Hume says that the ancient Muscovites wedded their wives with a whip instead of a ring.
Edwin Percy Whipple
#40. Rousseau was mad but influential; Hume was sane but had no followers.
David Hume
#41. Bacon , Locke , Descartes , Hume , and all the others knew they were giving rights to vulgarity. But in so doing in addition to caring for man's well-being they were providing rights for themselves.
Allan Bloom
#42. Nothing more powerfully excites any affection than to conceal some part of its object, by throwing it into a kind of shade, whichat the same time that it shows enough to prepossess us in favour of the object, leaves still some work for the imagination.
David Hume
#43. Eloquence, when in its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection.
David Hume
#44. Insure the uninsured. Effect of Obamacare to date: Uninsure the insured,
Brit Hume
#45. The basic policy of the British Government was that since the majority of people in Northern Ireland wished to remain in the United Kingdom, that was that. We asked what would happen if the majority wanted something else, if the majority wanted to see Irish unity.
John Hume
#46. Mohammed praises [instances of] tretchery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, and bigotry that are utterly incompatible with civilized society.
David Hume
#47. That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.
David Hume
#48. The mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an enquiry or discourse concerning the others: and if we think ofa wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting on the pain which follows it.
David Hume
#49. I don't vote. I voted Labour once, in that moment of euphoria. I know that if people only made a voice for change, then change will happen, but I'm not that person. I'm painting pictures.
Gary Hume
#50. If the contemplation, even of inanimate beauty, is so delightful; if it ravishes the senses, even when the fair form is foreign tous: What must be the effects of moral beauty? And what influence must it have, when it embellishes our own mind, and is the result of our own reflection and industry?
David Hume
#51. You know, the market was down yesterday ... my first thought when I heard-just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, Time to buy.
Brit Hume
#52. What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'.
David Hume
#53. It seems to me, that the only Objects of the abstract Sciences or of Demonstration is Quantity and Number, and that all Attempts to extend this more perfect Species of Knowledge beyond these Bounds are mere Sophistry and Illusion.
David Hume
#54. There is abundant proof that the opening of our ports always tends to raise the price of foreign corn to the price in the English market, and not to sink the price of British corn to the price in the continental market.
Joseph Hume
#55. When people are divided, the only solution is agreement.
John Hume
#56. I love to see a wood full of bluebells. Growing up in the Kent countryside, I have special memories of this brief annual spectacle.
Gary Hume
#57. Nothing is more favorable to the rise of politeness and learning, than a number of neighboring and independent states, connected together by commerce and policy.
David Hume
#58. Nothing exists without a cause, the original cause of this universe we call God.
David Hume
#59. The only thing I shall talk about is my sporting achievements at school. My primary sporting achievement at school was that I dodged games for two complete years and was well through the third year before they discovered that I had completely avoided all games.
John Hume
#60. I'm more and more fascinated in my own work. I work from 10 A.M. until about 9 P.M., but it's not an obsession, it's a pleasure. There's never enough time.
Gary Hume
#61. I'd rather be remembered as a famous painter than a famous model, so I'll have to start the ball rolling now.
Kirsty Hume
#62. But to proceed in this reconciling project with regard to the question of liberty and necessity; the most contentious question of metaphysics, the most contentious science ...
David Hume
#63. I like things that are just about to go. Everything's leaving. Death is never far away from me. When you make something, death can't help but be in it.
Gary Hume
#64. The basis of peace and stability, in any society, has to be the fullest respect for the human rights of all its people.
John Hume
#65. Beyond the constant conjunction of similar objects, and the consequent inference from one to the other, we have no notion of any necessity, or connexion.
David Hume
#66. [priests are] the pretenders to power and dominion, and to a superior sanctity of character, distinct from virtue and good morals.
David Hume
#67. It is more rational to suspect knavery and folly than to discount, at a stroke, everything that past experience has taught me about the way things actually work
David Hume
#68. Soon after you're dead - we're not sure how long - but not long, you'll be united with the most ecstatic love you've ever known. As one of the best things in your life was human love, this will be love, but much more satisfying, and it will last forever.
Basil Hume
#69. Therefore they should come to the table and reach an agreement that would protect their identity.
John Hume
#70. I was grateful for the opportunity to make a difference. The political violence really started in 1970-1971. The political difficulties start a little bit beyond that.
John Hume
#71. I do not have enough faith to believe there is no god.
David Hume
#72. Morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment.
David Hume
#73. Raki is bad enough, but it's nectar compared with pulque.
Fergus Hume
#74. Human Nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.
David Hume
#75. The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds.
David Hume
#76. Municipal laws are a supply to the wisdom of each individual; and, at the same time, by restraining the natural liberty of men, make private interest submit to the interest of the public.
David Hume
#77. Judgments. A mistake, therefore, of right may become a species
David Hume
#78. I am willing to admit that if the agriculturists are oppressed by peculiar burdens, they ought to be relieved from them, or be allowed a fair and just protection equivalent to all such peculiar burdens.
Joseph Hume
#79. I don't think very many people would accuse Paula Zahn of being a conservative.
Brit Hume
#80. This question depends upon the definition of the word, Nature, than which there is none more ambiguous and equivocal.
David Hume
#81. Nobody's profitable at this moment, because recession is on; advertising dollars are down, and expenses are way up. So that kind of belies the situation that you would expect, because the ratings are way up everywhere.
Brit Hume
#82. When you're five years old, and you're running a business that people did not think there was room for, getting attention is not a bad thing. Letting it be known by whatever colorful language is necessary is not a bad thing.
Brit Hume
#83. Moving from an objective statement of fact to a subjective statement of value does not work, because it leaves open questions that have not been answered.
David Hume
#84. From causes which appear similar, we expect similar effects. This is the sum total of all our experimental conclusions.
David Hume
#85. The sweetest and most inoffensive path of life leads through the avenues of science and learning; and whoever can either remove any obstructions in this way, or open up any new prospect, ought so far to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.
David Hume
#87. I see no reason for giving the capital employed in agriculture greater protection than the capital vested in other branches of trade, manufacture, or commerce.
Joseph Hume
#88. Habit may lead us to belief and expectation but not to the knowledge, and still less to the understanding, of lawful relations.
David Hume
#89. There is no such thing as freedom of choice unless there is freedom to refuse.
David Hume
#90. The law always limits every power it gives.
David Hume
#91. All inferences from experience ... are effects of custom, not of reasoning.
David Hume
#92. The Doors are perfect paintings; a relief from the picture world I've created for myself.
Gary Hume
#93. Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.
David Hume
#94. We learn the influence of our will from experience alone. And experience only teaches us, how one event constantly follows another; without instructing us in the secret connexion, which binds them together, and renders them inseparable.
David Hume
#95. If ... the past may be no Rule for the future, all Experience becomes useless and can give rise to no Inferences or Conclusions.
David Hume
#96. But I would still reply, that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature
David Hume
#97. It cannot reasonably be doubted, but a little miss, dressed in a new gown for a dancing-school ball, receives as complete enjoyment as the greatest orator, who triumphs in the splendour of his eloquence, while he governs the passions and resolutions of a numerous assembly.
David Hume
#98. These ideas are, perhaps, too far stretched; but still it must be acknowledged, that, by representing the Deity as so intelligible and comprehensible, and so similar to a human mind, we are guilty of the grossest and most narrow partiality, and make ourselves the model of the whole universe.
David Hume
#99. Carelessness and in-attention alone can afford us any remedy. For this reason I rely entirely upon them.
David Hume
#100. The essential passions of the heart have found a better soil in which it may attain it's maturity; remain under less restraint and extended into it's natural state
David Hume
