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David Hume Quotes

1711–1776 Scotland

David Hume (7 May 1711, N.S. [April 26, O.S.] – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist and essayist.

Scotland
Academics
Economists
Essayists
Historians

Also known as: Hume, Hume, David, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Random David Hume quote

116 quotes

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

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.

Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)

It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value.

Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)

Where ambition can be so happy as to cover its enterprizes, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of all human passions.

The History of England (1754)

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.

If nature has been frugal in her gifts and endowments, there is the more need of art to supply her defects.

Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)

Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination, and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers.

A Treatise of Human Nature (1739)

A propensity to hope and joy is real riches: One to fear and sorrow, real poverty.

Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)

Art may make a suit of clothes; but nature must produce a man.

Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)

It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.

Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)

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

A Treatise of Human Nature (1739)

Nature will always maintain her rights, and prevail in the end over any abstract reasoning whatsoever.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

We may change the name of things; but their nature and their operation on the understanding never change.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity; therefore I shall be short.

Grief and disappointment give rise to anger, anger to envy, envy to malice, and malice to grief again, till the whole circle be completed.

A Treatise of Human Nature (1739)

That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limits of human reason and capacity.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

The great end of all human industry, is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modelled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators.

Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)

Every event is alike important. The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.

Every thing in the world is purchased by labour.

Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: David Hume (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.