David Hume Quotes About Science

Quotes about: Science

• Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.

  David Hume

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Science

• The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.

  David Hume

  Life, Science, Men

  David Hume, Richard H. Popkin (1998). “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Second Edition)”, p.100, Hackett Publishing

• Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

  David Hume

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Science

  A Treatise upon Human Nature bk. 1 (1739)

• All knowledge degenerates into probability.

  David Hume

  Knowledge, Science, Degenerates

  David Hume (2015). “A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.144, 谷月社

• All knowledge resolves itself into probability. ... In every judgment, which we can form concerning probability, as well as concerning knowledge, we ought always to correct the first judgment deriv'd from the nature of the object, by another judgment, deriv'd from the nature of the understanding.

  David Hume

  Knowledge, Science, Understanding

  David Hume (2003). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.130, Courier Corporation

• Look round this universe. What an immense profusion of beings, animated and organized, sensible and active! You admire this prodigious variety and fecundity. But inspect a little more narrowly these living existences, the only beings worth regarding. How hostile and destructive to each other! How insufficient all of them for their own happiness! How contemptible or odious to the spectator! The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind Nature, inpregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment or parental care, her maimed and abortive children.

  David Hume

  Nature, Children, Science

  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.452

• All the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and...however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of MAN; since they lie under the cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and faculties.

  David Hume

  Running, Philosophy, Lying

• 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

• Tho' there be no such Thing as Chance in the World; our Ignorance of the real Ccause of any Event has the same Influence on the Understanding, and begets a like Species of Belief or Opinion.

  David Hume

  Real, Ignorance, Science

  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Section VI (p. 37)

• 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

• 'Tis certain that a serious attention to the sciences and liberal arts softens and humanizes the temper, and cherishes those fine emotions in which true virtue and honor consist. It rarely, very rarely happens that a man of taste and learning is not, at least, an honest man, whatever frailties may attend him.

  David Hume

  Art, Honesty, Science

• 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

• There is nothing, in itself, valuable or despicable, desirable or hateful, beautiful or deformed; but that these attributes arise from the particular constitution and fabric of human sentiment and affection.

  David Hume

  Beautiful, Science, Fabric

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.675, Delphi Classics

• It seems to me, that the only Objects of the abstract Sciences or of Demonstration is Quantity and Number, and that all Attempts to extend this more perfect Species of Knowledge beyond these Bounds are mere Sophistry and Illusion.

  David Hume

  Knowledge, Science, Numbers

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.1066, Delphi Classics

• 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

  Knowledge, Science, Needs

  David Hume (2003). “A Treatise of Human Nature”, p.176, Courier Corporation

• In all matters of opinion and science ... the difference between men is ... oftener found to lie in generals than in particulars; and to be less in reality than in appearance. An explication of the terms commonly ends the controversy, and the disputants are surprised to find that they had been quarrelling, while at bottom they agreed in their judgement.

  David Hume

  Lying, Science, Reality

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

• While Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed at the same time the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy; and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity, in which they ever did and ever will remain.

  David Hume

  Nature, Philosophy, Science

  David Hume (1759). “The Commonwealth, and the reigns of Charles II. and James II”, p.450

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