David Hume (1711–76) was a Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian. He rejected the possibility of certainty in knowledge and claimed that all the data of reason stem from experience by the senses.
Born in Edinburgh, Hume was fascinated by literature and philosophy at a young age. He became obsessed with the idea of truth; it caused him to lose his faith when he was 18 years old. After finishing his studies, he moved to France for private studies, and wrote his Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40,) in which he argued that reasoning was merely the habit of the mind as it attempted to make sense of random events, and that reason would never be adequate to arrive at the ultimate cause of anything. He argued that it was impossible to go beyond the subjective experiences of impressions and ideas. He also wrote An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748,) An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751,) and Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary (1752.)
In 1755, the Church of England tried to prosecute Hume for his religious skepticism, but the case was dismissed. Hume thus became one of the first to openly question the existence of God without almost no consequences.
Hume’s philosophical writings went overlooked during his lifetime, and the considerable fame he achieved derived from his work as an essayist and a historian. While working as a librarian, Hume wrote the six-volume History of England (1762,) which became a best-seller for more than a century and gave him the financial independence to write and revise his many philosophical treatises.
Hume became the leading figure of a group of Scottish intellectuals, including the economist Adam Smith (who invented the study of economics,) Adam Ferguson (who helped invent sociology,) James Hutton (who invented geology,) Joseph Black and William Cullen (who invented modern chemistry,) James Watt (who developed the steam engine,) James Boswell (who wrote the biography of Samuel Johnson,) Walter Scott (who wrote the first great novel,) and Hugh Blair (the first University professor to teach a course in English literature.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by David Hume
Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.
—David Hume
Topics: Thoughts, Thought, Beauty, Thinking
Delicacy of taste is favorable to love and friendship, by confining our choice to few people, and making us indifferent to the company and conversation of the greater part of men.
—David Hume
Topics: Taste
Human life is more governed by fortune than by reason.
—David Hume
Topics: Fortune
It is impossible for men even to murder each other without statutes and maxims, and an idea of justice and honor.—War has its laws as well as peace.
—David Hume
Topics: Law
Such superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits the pre eminence above those who excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.
—David Hume
Topics: Literature
There is a sort of harmless liars, frequently to be met with in company, who deal much in the marvellous. Their usual intention is to please and entertain: but as men are most delighted with what they conceive to be truth, these people mistake the means of pleasing, and incur universal blame.
—David Hume
Topics: Exaggeration
The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modeled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.
—David Hume
Topics: Happiness
It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.
—David Hume
Topics: Life and Living
Avarice, the spur of industry.
—David Hume
Topics: Greed
The sublime, says Longinus, “is often nothing but the echo or image of magnanimity” and where this quality appears in any one, even though a syllable be not uttered, it excites our applause and admiration.
—David Hume
The free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any environment.
—David Hume
Topics: Friendship
The figure which a man makes in life, the reception which he meets with in company, the esteem paid him by his acquaintance—all these depend as much upon his good sense and judgment, as upon any other part, of his character. A man of the best intentions, and farthest removed from all injustice and violence, would never be able to make himself much regarded, without a moderate share of parts and understanding.
—David Hume
Topics: Common Sense
The law always limits every power it gives.
—David Hume
Topics: Power
Disbelief in futurity loosens in a great measure the ties of morality, and may be for that reason pernicious to the peace of civil society.
—David Hume
Topics: Beliefs
To be happy, the temperament must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy.—A propensity to hope and joy, is real riches; one to fear and sorrow, is real poverty.
—David Hume
Topics: Hope, Cheerfulness
A pleasant comedy, which paints the manners of the age, and exposes a faithful picture of nature, is a durable work, and is transmitted to the latest posterity. But a system, whether physical or metaphysical, commonly owes its success to its novelty; and is no sooner canvassed with impartiality than its weakness is discovered.
—David Hume
Topics: Comedy
That the corruption of the best thing produces the worst, is grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among other instances, by the pernicious effects of superstition and enthusiasm, the corruptions of true religion.
—David Hume
Topics: Superstition
And what is the greatest number? Number one.
—David Hume
Topics: Competition
Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.
—David Hume
Topics: History
Such is the nature of novelty that I where anything pleases it becomes doubly agreeable if new; but if it displeases, it is doubly displeasing on that I very account.
—David Hume
Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.
—David Hume
Topics: Character
In a vain man, the smallest spark may kindle into the greatest flame, because the materials are always prepared for it.
—David Hume
Topics: Vanity
Mankind are always found prodigal both of blood and treasure in the maintenance of public justice.
—David Hume
Topics: Justice
Let us consider what we call vicious luxury. No gratification, however sensual, can of itself be esteemed vicious. A gratification is only vicious when it engrosses all a man’s expense, and leaves no ability for such acts of duty and generosity as are required by his situation and fortune. The same care and toil that raise a dish of peas at Christmas would give bread to a whole family during six months.
—David Hume
Topics: Luxury
The greatest parts, without discretion, may be fatal to their owner.—Polyphemus, deprived of his eye, was only the more exposed on account of his enormous strength and stature.
—David Hume
Be a philosopher; but amid all your philosophy, be still a man.
—David Hume
Topics: Philosophy
The sweetest and most inoffensive path of life leads through the avenues of science and learning; and whoever can either remove any obstruction in this way, or open up any new prospect, ought, so far, to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.
—David Hume
Topics: Learning
Trivial circumstances, which show the manners of the age, are often more instructive as well as entertaining, than the great transactions of wars and negotiations, which are nearly similar in all periods, and in all countries of the world.
—David Hume
It is certain that a serious attention to the sciences and liberal arts softens and humanizes the temper, and cherishes those fine emotions in which true virtue and honor consist. It very rarely happens that a man of taste and learning is not, at least, an honest man, whatever frailties may attend him.
—David Hume
Topics: Science
Where ambition can cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of passions.
—David Hume
Topics: Ambition
Vanity is so closely allied to virtue, and to love the fame of laudable actions approaches so near the love of laudable actions for their own sake, that these passions are more capable of mixture than any other kinds of affection; and it is almost impossible to have the latter without some degree of the former.
—David Hume
Topics: Vanity
Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
—David Hume
Topics: Friendship, One liners, Arguments
Delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion; it enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and misery, and makes us sensible to pain as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind.
—David Hume
Topics: Taste
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.
—David Hume
Topics: Universe
On the theory of the soul
—David Hume
Topics: Women
What praise is implied in the simple epithet useful! What reproach in the contrary.
—David Hume
Topics: Usefullness
Praise never gives us much pleasure unless it concur with our own opinion, and extol us for those qualities in which we chiefly excel.
—David Hume
Topics: Praise
Custom, then, is the great guide to human life.
—David Hume
Topics: Custom, Habits
The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the pleasure and use of man, produces to its slothful owner the most abundant crop of poisons.
—David Hume
Topics: Genius
Among the other excellencies of man, this is one, that he can form the image of perfection much beyond what he has experience of in himself, and is not limited in his conception of wisdom and virtue.
—David Hume
Topics: Perfection
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