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The identity that we ascribe to things is only a fictitious one, established by the mind, not a peculiar nature belonging to what we’re talking about.
David Hume
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David Hume
Age: 65 †
Born: 1711
Born: April 26
Died: 1776
Died: August 25
Economist
Essayist
Historian
Librarian
Philosopher
Writer
Edinburgh
Scotland
David Home
Hume
Identity
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More quotes by David Hume
All knowledge resolves itself into probability. ... In every judgment, which we can form concerning probability, as well as concerning knowledge, we ought always to correct the first judgment deriv'd from the nature of the object, by another judgment, deriv'd from the nature of the understanding.
David Hume
Enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of liberty as superstition,on the contrary, renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery.
David Hume
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
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
We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but 'tis vain to ask. Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.
David Hume
It affords a violent prejudice against almost every science, that no prudent man, however sure of his principles, dares prophesy concerning any event, or foretell the remote consequences of things.
David Hume
Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose existence is demonstrable.
David Hume
To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see all this is nothing but to perceive.
David Hume
A propensity to hope and joy is real riches one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
David Hume
That the sun shines tomorrow is a judgement that is as true as the contrary judgement.
David Hume
Everything is sold to skill and labor and where nature furnishes the materials, they are still rude and unfinished, till industry, ever active and intelligent, refines them from their brute state, and fits them for human use and convenience.
David Hume
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
If morality had naturally no influence on human passions and actions, it were in vain to take such pains to inculcate it and nothing would be more fruitless than that multitude of rules and precepts with which all moralists abound.
David Hume
Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds on which it is commonly founded.
David Hume
The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.
David Hume
Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.
David Hume
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
[A persons] utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value.
David Hume
The greater part of mankind may be divided into two classes that of shallow thinkers who fall short of the truth and that of abstruse thinkers who go beyond it.
David Hume
The ages of greatest public spirit are not always eminent for private virtue.
David Hume