David Hume Quotes About Past

Quotes about: Past

• To consider the matter aright, reason is nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls, which carries us along a certain train of ideas, and endows them with particular qualities, according to their particular situations and relations. This instinct, 'tis true, arises from past observation and experience; but can anyone give the ultimate reason, why past experience and observation produces such an effect, any more than why nature alone should produce it?

  David Hume

  Nature, Science, Past

  David Hume (2003). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.128, Courier Corporation

• It is still open for me, as well as you, to regulate my behavior, by my experience of past events.

  David Hume

  Past, Events, Ethics

  DAVID HUME (1854). “THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS OF DAVID HUME.”, p.160

• If ... the past may be no Rule for the future, all Experience becomes useless and can give rise to no Inferences or Conclusions.

  David Hume

  Future, Science, Past

  David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition”, p.305

• The supposition that the future resembles the past, is not founded on arguments of any kind, but is derived entirely from habit.

  David Hume

  Past, Words Of Wisdom, Kind

  David Hume (2015). “A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.110, 谷月社

• ..all arguments concerning existence are founded on the relation of cause and effect; that our knowledge of that relation is derived entirely from experience; and all our experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition that the future will be conformable to the past. .... Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses.

  David Hume

  Memories, Past, Words Of Wisdom

• We have no other notion of cause and effect, but that of certain objects, which have always conjoin'd together, and which in all past instances have been found inseparable. We cannot penetrate into the reason of the conjunction. We only observe the thing itself, and always find that from the constant conjunction the objects acquire an union in the imagination.

  David Hume

  Science, Past, Imagination

• Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone, which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past.

  David Hume

  Past, Experience, Principles

  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.29, Hackett Publishing

• When we reflect on our past sentiments and affections, our thought is a faithful mirror, and copies its objects truly; but the colours which it employs are faint and dull, in comparison of those in which our original perceptions were clothed.

  David Hume

  Past, Mirrors, Faithful

  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.10, Hackett Publishing

• ...virtue is attended by more peace of mind than vice, and meets with a more favourable reception from the world. I am sensible, that, according to the past experience of mankind, friendship is the chief joy of human life and moderation the only source of tranquillity and happiness.

  David Hume

  Past, Joy, Mind

  David Hume, Peter Millican (2008). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p.102, Oxford University Press

• 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

  Past, Knavery, Way

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