Quote

The free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any environment.

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
Conversation
Friend
Environment
Free
Would
Prefer
Friendship

More quotes by David Hume

Image
If God is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good, whence evil? If God wills to prevent evil but cannot, then He is not omnipotent. If He can prevent evil but does not, then he is not good. In either case he is not God.
David Hume
Image
Grief and disappointment give rise to anger, anger to envy, envy to malice, and malice to grief again, till the whole circle be completed.
David Hume
Image
I know with certainty, that [an honest man] is not to put his hand into the fire, and hold it there, till it be consumed: And thisevent, I think I can foretell with the same assurance, as that, if he throw himself out at the window, and meet with no obstruction, he will not remain a moment suspended in the air.
David Hume
Image
When I am convinced of any principle, it is only an idea which strikes more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence.
David Hume
Image
We need only reflect on what has been prov'd at large, that we are never sensible of any connexion betwixt causes and effects, and that 'tis only by our experience of their constant conjunction, we can arrive at any knowledge of this relation.
David Hume
Image
Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.
David Hume
Image
I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another.
David Hume
Image
I do not have enough faith to believe there is no god.
David Hume
Image
The forming of general maxims from particular observation is a very nice operation and nothing is more usual, from haste or a narrowness of mind, which sees not on all sides, than to commit mistakes in this particular.
David Hume
Image
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.
David Hume
Image
Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.
David Hume
Image
It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes, in order to be received.
David Hume
Image
Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
David Hume
Image
All inferences from experience... are effects of custom, not of reasoning.
David Hume
Image
Convulsions in nature, disorders, prodigies, miracles, though the most opposite of the plan of a wise superintendent, impress mankind with the strongest sentiments of religion.
David Hume
Image
It's when we start working together that the real healing takes place... it's when we start spilling our sweat, and not our blood.
David Hume
Image
There is, indeed a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are corrected by common sense and reflection.
David Hume
Image
I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilization of their complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or speculation.
David Hume
Image
Self-denial is a monkish virtue.
David Hume
Image
Habit may lead us to belief and expectation but not to the knowledge, and still less to the understanding, of lawful relations.
David Hume