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From causes which appear similar, we expect similar effects. This is the sum total of all our experimental conclusions.

David Hume

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David Hume
Age: 65 †
Born: 1711
Born: April 26
Died: 1776
Died: August 25
Economist
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Historian
Librarian
Philosopher
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Edinburgh
Scotland
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More quotes by David Hume

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The religious hypothesis, therefore, must be considered only as a particular method of accounting for the visible phenomena of the universe: but no just reasoner will ever presume to infer from it any single fact, and alter or add to the phenomena, in any single particular.
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The free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any environment.
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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.
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Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting.
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A propensity to hope and joy is real riches one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
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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.
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A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.
David Hume
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To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.
David Hume
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To invent without scruple a new principle to every new phenomenon, instead of adapting it to the old to overload our hypothesis with a variety of this kind, are certain proofs that none of these principles is the just one, and that we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth.
David Hume
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A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
David Hume
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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.
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Eloquence, when in its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection.
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The sweetest path of life leads through the avenues of learning, and whoever can open up the way for another, ought, so far, to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.
David Hume
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The Crusades - the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation.
David Hume
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Art may make a suite of clothes, but nature must produce a man.
David Hume
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A CAUSE is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.
David Hume
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It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause
David Hume
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Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
David Hume
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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
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The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.
David Hume