David Hume Quotes About Quality

Quotes about: Quality

• Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.

  David Hume

  Beauty, Mind, Quality

  'Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary' (ed. T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, 1875) 'Of the Standard of Taste' (1757)

• No quality of human nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathize with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own.

  David Hume

  Communication, Quality, Different

  David Hume (1874). “A Treatise on Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning Into Moral Subjects; and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion”, p.111

• Courage, of all national qualities, is the most precarious; because it is exerted only at intervals, and by a few in every nation; whereas industry, knowledge, civility, may be of constant and universal use, and for several ages, may become habitual to the whole people.

  David Hume

  Courage, People, Quality

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.706, Delphi Classics

• 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

• We find in the course of nature that though the effects be many, the principles from which they arise are commonly few and simple, and that it is the sign of an unskilled naturalist to have recourse to a different quality in order to explain every different operation.

  David Hume

  Simple, Order, Words Of Wisdom

• Barbarity, caprice; these qualities, however nominally disguised, we may universally observe from the ruling character of the deity in all regular religions.

  David Hume

  Religious, Character, Evil

  David Hume (1793). “An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion”, p.467

• Praise never gives us much pleasure unless it concur with our own opinion, and extol us for those qualities in which we chiefly excel.

  David Hume

  Giving, Quality, Opinion

  David Hume (1793). “Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects”, p.206

• Upon the whole, necessity is something, that exists in the mind, not in objects; nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it, consider'd as a quality in bodies. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of thought to pass from cause to effects and effects to causes, according to their experienc'd union.

  David Hume

  Determination, Ideas, Mind

  David Hume (2003). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.119, Courier Corporation

• All morality depends upon our sentiments; and when any action or quality of the mind pleases us after a certain manner we say it is virtuous; and when the neglect or nonperformance of it displeases us after a like manner, we say that we lie under an obligation to perform it.

  David Hume

  Lying, Mind, Quality

  David Hume (2010). “Moral and Political Philosophy”, p.142, Simon and Schuster

• There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us.

  David Hume

  Hurt, Army, Moon

  David Hume (1957). “The Natural History of Religion”, p.29, Stanford University Press

• ... 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

• ... 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

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