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An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding quotes

David Hume

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“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“In vain, therefore, should we pretend to determine any single event, or infer any cause or effect, without the assistance of observation and experience.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“For surely, if there be any relation among objects which it imports to us to know perfectly, it is that of cause and effect.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“Custom, then, is the great guide of human life.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“Complex ideas may, perhaps, be well known by definition, which is nothing but an enumeration of those parts or simple ideas, that compose them.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“The appearance of a cause always conveys the mind, by a customary transition, to the idea of the effect.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“The only immediate utility of all sciences, is to teach us, how to control and regulate future events by their causes.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a...” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“Nature will always maintain her rights, and prevail in the end over any abstract reasoning whatsoever.” 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
“I say, then, that 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.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limits of human reason and capacity.” 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
“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
“That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“The general observations treasured up by a course of experience, give us the clue of human nature, and teach us to unravel all its intricacies. Pretexts and appearances no longer deceive us.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“The imagination has the command over all its ideas, and can join and mix and vary them, in all the ways possible.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that 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.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“Accuracy is, in every case, advantageous to beauty, and just reasoning to delicate sentiment. In vain would we exalt the one by depreciating the other.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“Obscurity, indeed, is painful to the mind as well as to the eye; but to bring light from obscurity, by whatever labour, must needs be delightful and rejoicing.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“Such is the influence of custom, that, where it is strongest, it not only covers our natural ignorance, but even conceals itself, and seems not to take place, merely because it is found in the highest degree.” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
“Philosophers, that give themselves airs of superior wisdom and sufficiency, have a hard task when they encounter persons of inquisitive dispositions, who push them from every corner to which they retreat, and who are sure at last to bring them to...” David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

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effect reason philosophy experience science belief imagination understanding weakness appearance nature contradiction ideas miracles cause custom faith life ignorance learning

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