David Hume Quotes About Atheism

Quotes about: Atheism

• A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.

  David Hume

  Wise, Wisdom, Knowledge

  1748 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section 10, pt.1.

• 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

  Christian, Religious, Miracle

  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding "Of Miracles" (1748)

• ..when, in my philosophical disquisitions, I deny a providence and a future state, I undermine not the foundations of society, but advance principles, which they themselves, upon their own topics, if they argue consistently, must allow to be solid and satisfactory.

  David Hume

  Philosophical, Atheism, Foundation

  David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects”, p.358

• Superstition is an enemy to civil liberty.

  David Hume

  Enemy, Religion, Atheism

  David Hume (1862). “Essays moral, political, and literary. (Life of the author, etc.).”, p.48

• Examine the religious principles which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded that they are other than sick men's dreams.

  David Hume

  Dream, Religious, Men

  "The Natural History of Religion".

• 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

  Order, Atheism, Unexpected

  David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition”, p.368

• Nothing is so convenient as a decisive argument ... which must at least silence the most arrogant bigotry and superstition, and free us from their impertinent solicitations. I flatter myself, that I have discovered an argument ... which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and consequently, will be useful as long as the world endures. For so long, I presume, will the accounts of miracles and prodigies be found in all history, sacred and profane.

  David Hume

  Wise, Long, Silence

  David Hume, Eric Steinberg (1992). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding; [with] A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh; [and] An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature”, p.73, Hackett Publishing

• 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. This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination.

  David Hume

  Taken, Passion, Reality

  David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition”, p.311

• [priests are] the pretenders to power and dominion, and to a superior sanctity of character, distinct from virtue and good morals.

  David Hume

  Character, Religion, Atheism

  David Hume (1875). “Essays Moral, Political, and Literary”, p.146

• ... superstitions, which, being unable to defend themselves on fair ground, raise these intangling brambles to cover and protect their weakness. Chased from the open country, these robbers fly into the forest, and lie in wait to break in upon every unguarded avenue of the mind, and overwhelm it with religious fears and prejudices. ... The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom.

  David Hume

  Wise, Country, Religious

  David Hume (1779). “An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion”, p.10

• 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 determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

  David Hume

  Determination, Believe, Giving

  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding "Of Miracles" (1748)

• 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.

  David Hume

  Religious, Atheism, Add

  David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects”, p.360

• ... The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom.

  David Hume

  Wise, Intelligent, Ideas

  David Hume, Eric Steinberg (1993). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding ; [with] A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh ; [and] An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature”, p.11, Hackett Publishing

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