An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Quotes

“In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence.A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return?... I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.

Most fortunately it happens, that since Reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends. And when, after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“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, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“Indulge your passion for science…but let your science be human, and such as may have a direct reference to action and society. Be a philosopher; but amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“Scepticism may be theoretically irrefutable, but even the sceptic must ‘act… and live, and converse, like other men’, since human nature gives him no choice.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

“The feelings of our heart, the agitation of our passions, the vehemence of our affections, dissipate all its conclusions, and reduce the profound philosopher to a mere plebeian”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and because firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the case against a miracle is—just because it is a miracle—as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined to be. Why is it more than merely probable that all men must die, that lead cannot when not supported remain suspended in the air, that fire consumes wood and is extinguished by water, unless it is that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and for things to go differently there would have to be a violation of those laws, or in other words a miracle? Nothing is counted as a
miracle if it ever happens in the common course of nature. When a man who seems to be in good health suddenly dies, this isn't a miracle; because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet often been observed
to happen. But a dead man’s coming to life would be a miracle, because that has never been observed in any age or country. So there must be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, because otherwise the event wouldn't count as a ‘miracle’. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, we have here a direct and full proof against the existence of any miracle, just because it’s a miracle; and
such a proof can’t be destroyed or the miracle made credible except by an opposite proof that is even stronger.

This clearly leads us to a general maxim that deserves of
our attention:

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless it is of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact that it tries to establish. And even in that case there is a mutual destruction of
arguments, and the stronger one only gives us an assurance suitable to the force that remains to it after the force needed to cancel the other has been
subtracted.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“No conclusion can be more agreable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limites of human reason and capacity”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“And while the body is confined to one planet, along which it creeps with pain and difficulty; the thought can in an instant transport us into the most distant regions of the universe; or even beyond the universe, into the unbounded chaos, where nature is supposed to lie in total confusion. What never was seen, or heard or, may yet be conceived; not is any thing beyond the power of thought, except what implies as absolute contradiction.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“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 danger-ous 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.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“the Roman Catholic Index of Prohibited Books, a list that came to include almost every significant work of post-medieval Western philosophy.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

“Here then we are first to consider a book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written in an age when they were still more barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and resembling those fabulous accounts, which every nation gives of its origin.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“Nature is always too strong for principle.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“our minds can create new ideas from the components which experience has already given us, by combining together our existing ideas in new ways or by shuffling the components of our existing ideas, but we are quite unable to form any completely new ideas beyond those that have already been given to us by sensation or feeling.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

“The more instances we examine, and the more care we employ, the more assurance shall we acquire, that the enumeration, which we form from the whole, is complete and entire.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“Long before we have reached the last steps of the argument leading to our theory, we are already in Fairyland”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“starting with Martin Luther’s rebellion against the Church of Rome in 1517, led to widespread religious wars founded on philosophical differences: one side took Church authority and tradition as the criterion of truth, the other appealed instead to the Spirit of God acting within the individual believer.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

“Nor are the earth, water, and other elements, examined by ARISTOTLE, and HIPPOCRATES, more like to those, which at present lie under our observation, than the men, described by POLYBIUS and TACITUS, are to those, who now govern the world.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: with Hume's Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature and A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh

“All beliefs about matters of fact or real existence are derived merely from something that is present to the memory or senses, and a customary association of that with some other thing.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding / Eine Untersuchung über den menschlichen Verstand: Englisch/Deutsch (Reclams Universal-Bibliothek)

“All the materials of thinking are derived either from our outward senses or from our inward feelings: all that the mind and will do is to mix and combine these materials.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“When we think back on our past sensations and feelings, our thought is a faithful mirror that copies its objects truly; but it does so in colours that are fainter and more washed-out than those in which our original perceptions were clothed.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“Abstruse thought and profound researches I prohibit, and will severely punish, by the pensive melancholy which they introduce, by the endless uncertainty in which they involve you, and by the cold reception which your pretended discoveries shall meet with, when communicated. Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“The greater part of mankind are naturally apt to be affirmative and dogmatical in their opinions; and while they see objects only on one side, and have no idea of any counterpoising argument, they throw themselves precipitately into the principles, to which they are inclined; nor have they any indulgence for those who entertain opposite sentiments. To hesitate or balance perplexes their understanding, checks their passion, and suspends their action. They are, therefore, impatient till they escape from a state, which to them is so uneasy: and they think, that they could never remove themselves far enough from it, by the violence of their affirmations and obstinacy of their belief. But”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“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, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

“A body of ten ounces raised in any scale may serve as a proof, that the counterbalancing weight exceeds ten ounces; but can never afford a reason that it exceeds a hundred.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“To begin with clear and self-evident principles, to advance by timorous and sure steps, to review frequently our conclusions, and examine accurately all their consequences; though by these means we shall make both a slow and a short progress in our systems; are the only methods, by which we can ever hope to reach truth, and attain a proper stability and certainty in our determinations.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“The other species of philosophers consider man in the light of a reasonable rather than an active being, and endeavour to form his understanding more than cultivate his manners. They regard human nature as a subject of speculation; and with a narrow scrutiny examine it, in order to find those principles, which regulate our understanding, excite our sentiments, and make us approve or blame any particular object, action, or behaviour. They think it a reproach to all literature, that philosophy should not yet have fixed, beyond controversy, the foundation of morals, reasoning, and criticism; and should for ever talk of truth and falsehood, vice and virtue, beauty and deformity, without being able to determine the source of these distinctions. While they attempt this arduous task, they are deterred by no difficulties; but proceeding from particular instances to general principles, they still push on their enquiries to principles more general, and rest not satisfied till they arrive at those original principles, by which, in every science, all human curiosity must be bounded. Though their speculations seem abstract, and even unintelligible to common readers, they aim at the approbation of the learned and the wise; and think themselves sufficiently compensated for the labour of their whole lives, if they can discover some hidden truths, which may contribute to the instruction of posterity.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding