David Hume Quotes About Understanding

Quotes about: Understanding

• Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.

  David Hume

  Reflection, Understanding, Desire

  "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding". Book by David Hume. Section 10: "Of Miracles", Part 2, 1758.

• 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

• 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)

• All sentiment is right; because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and is always real, wherever a man is conscious of it. But all determinations of the understanding are not right; because they have a reference to something beyond themselves, to wit, real matter of fact; and are not always conformable to that standard.

  David Hume

  Determination, Real, Men

  David Hume (2015). “Of the Standard of Taste”, p.4, David Hume

• All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.

  David Hume

  Ignorance, Understanding, Obscurity

  David Hume (1826). “The Philosophical Works: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Ed. Publ. by the Author”, p.518

• The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue.

  David Hume

  Understanding, Three, Fancy

  David Hume (1826). “And the human understanding. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. Appendix. The natural history of religion”, p.530

• Morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment.

  David Hume

  Understanding, Criticism, Taste

  David Hume (1826). “And the human understanding. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. Appendix. The natural history of religion”, p.192

• Habit may lead us to belief and expectation but not to the knowledge, and still less to the understanding, of lawful relations.

  David Hume

  Expectations, Understanding, May

• 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)

• Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

  David Hume

  Teacher, Passion, Reflection

  David Hume (2012). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p.127, tredition

• Though men of delicate taste be rare, they are easily to be distinguished in society by the soundness of their understanding, and the superiority of their faculties above the rest of mankind.

  David Hume

  Men, Understanding, Culture

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.1314, Delphi Classics

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin