Quote

It seems to me, that the only Objects of the abstract Sciences or of Demonstration is Quantity and Number, and that all Attempts to extend this more perfect Species of Knowledge beyond these Bounds are mere Sophistry and Illusion.

David Hume

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Science
Species
Demonstration
Seems
Mere
Attempts
Number
Sciences
Objects
Quantity
Beyond
Abstract
Numbers
Bounds
Knowledge
Accounts
Sophistry
Perfect
Illusion
Extend

More quotes by David Hume

Image
The consequence of a very free commerce between the sexes, and of their living much together, will often terminate in intrigues and gallantry.
David Hume
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.
David Hume
Image
Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients: action, pleasure and indolence.
David Hume
Image
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
Image
Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.
David Hume
Image
As every inquiry which regards religion is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning it origin in human nature.
David Hume
Image
Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escap'd shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances.
David Hume
Image
The greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere.
David Hume
Image
When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?
David Hume
Image
We may observe that, in displaying the praises of any humane, beneficent man, there is one circumstance which never fails to be amply insisted on, namely, the happiness and satisfaction, derived to society from his intercourse and good offices.
David Hume
Image
The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.
David Hume
Image
The simplest and most obvious cause which can there be assigned for any phenomena, is probably the true one.
David Hume
Image
An infinite number of real parts of time, passing in succession, and exhausted one after another, appears so evident a contradiction, that no man, one should think, whose judgement is not corrupted, instead of being improved, by the sciences, would ever be able to admit of it.
David Hume
Image
the senses alone are not implicitly to be depended on. We must correct their evidence by reason, and by considerations, derived from the nature of the medium, the distance of the object, and the disposition of the organ, in order to render them, within their sphere, the proper criteria of truth and falsehood.
David Hume
Image
Such a 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 that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.
David Hume
Image
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
David Hume
Image
God is an ever-present spirit guiding all that happens to a wise and holy end.
David Hume
Image
If the religious spirit be ever mentioned in any historical narration, we are sure to meet afterwards with a detail of the miseries which attend it. And no period of time can be happier or more prosperous, than those in which it is never regarded or heard of.
David Hume