david-hume Quotes About reason

Source: The Empiricists: Locke: Concerning Human Understanding; Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge & 3 Dialogues; Hume: Concerning Human Understanding & Concerning Natural Religio

“Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.”

Reason Action Passion Moral Produce Particular Morality Conclusion

Book:A Treatise on Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning Into Moral Subjects; and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Source: A Treatise on Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning Into Moral Subjects; and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

“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.”

Source: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies to liberty; and it is certain, that this steady conduct of theirs must have been founded on fixed reasons of interest and ambition. Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds, on which it is commonly founded; and, by an infallible connexion, which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed, at least has never yet been enjoyed, but in a free government.”

Source: Essays Moral, Political, Literary: Revision of Great Book

“No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limits of human reason and capacity.”

Humans Reason Limits Weakness Discovery Capacity Conclusion Scepticism Human Reason

Book: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

Source: 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

“It must appear impossible, that theism could, from reasoning, have been the primary religion of human race, and have afterwards, by its corruption, given birth to polytheism and to all the various superstitions of the heathen world. Reason, when obvious, prevents these corruptions: When abstruse, it keeps the principles entirely from the knowledge of the vulgar, who are alone liable to corrupt any principle or opinion.”

Source: The Natural History of Religion: Revision of Great Book

“Eloquence, when in its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection.”

Littles Reason Rooms Highest Reflection Eloquence

Book:The Philosophical Works: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Ed. Publ. by the Author

Source: The Philosophical Works: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Ed. Publ. by the Author

“Accurate and just reasoning is the only catholic remedy, fitted for all persons and all dispositions; and is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom.”

Giving Persons Reason Philosophy Able Air Catholic Reasoning Superstitions Accurate Remedy Disposition Metaphysical Careless Jargon

Book:The Philosophical Works of David Hume: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Pub. by the Author

Source: The Philosophical Works of David Hume: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Pub. by the Author

“Friendship is a calm and sedate affection, conducted by reason and cemented by habit; springing from long acquaintance and mutual obligations, without jealousies or fears, and without those feverish fits of heat and cold, which cause such an agreeable torment in the amorous passion.”

Long Reason Passion Causes Friendship Cold Habit Fit Calm Affection Obligation Heat Mutual Torment Acquaintance Amorous Heat And Cold

Book:Essays Moral, Political, Literary: Revision of Great Book

Source: Essays Moral, Political, Literary: Revision of Great Book

“An established government has an infinite advantage, by that very circumstance of its being established--the bulk of mankind being governed by authority, not reason, and never attributing authority to anything that has not the recommendation of antiquity.”

Reason Government Mankind Circumstances Authority Advantage Infinite Antiquity Recommendations

Book:Hume: Political Essays

Source: Hume: Political Essays

“Reason, in a strict sense, as meaning the judgment of truth and falsehood, can never, of itself, be any motive to the will, and can have no influence but so far as it touches some passion or affection. Abstract relations of ideas are the object of curiosity, not of volition. And matters of fact, where they are neither good nor evil, where they neither excite desire nor aversion, are totally indifferent, and whether known or unknown, whether mistaken or rightly apprehended, cannot be regarded as any motive to action.”

Source: A Dissertation on the Passions: The Natural History of Religion : a Critical Edition

“The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.”

“On the theory of the soul's mortality, the inferiority of women's capacity is easily accounted for: Their domestic life requires no higher faculties either of mind or body. This circumstance vanishes and becomes absolutely insignificant, on the religious theory: The one sex has an equal task to perform as the other: Their powers of reason and resolution ought also to have been equal, and both of them infinitely greater than at present.”

Source: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Second Edition)

“It seems certain, that though a man, in a flush of humour, after intense reflection on the many contradictions and imperfections of human reason, may entirely renounce all belief and opinion, it is impossible for him to persevere in this total scepticism, or make it appear in his conduct for a few hours.”

Source: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

“It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. It is not contrary to reason for me to choose my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian, or person wholly unknown to me. It is as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledged lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than the latter.”

World Littles Persons Reason Whole My Own Greater Destruction Fingers Affection Contrary Whole World Ruins Former Indian Latter Preference Ardent Uneasiness

Author:David Hume

“Let us become thoroughly sensible of the weakness, blindness, and narrow limits of human reason: Let us duly consider its uncertainty and endless contrarieties, even in subjects of common life and practice.... When these topics are displayed in their full light, as they are by some philosophers and almost all divines; who can retain such confidence in this frail faculty of reason as to pay any regard to its determinations in points so sublime, so abstruse, so remote from common life and experience?”

Source: Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)

“No truth appears to me more evident than that beasts are endowed with thought and reason as well as men.”

Men Wells Reason Beast Evident

Book:The Philosophical Works: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Ed. Publ. by the Author

Source: The Philosophical Works: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Ed. Publ. by the Author

“For as to the dispersing of Books, that Circumstance does perhaps as much harm as good: Since Nonsense flies with greater Celerity, and makes greater Impression than Reason; though indeed no particular species of Nonsense is so durable. But the several Forms of Nonsense never cease succeeding one another; and Men are always under the Dominion of some one or other, though nothing was ever equal in Absurdity and Wickedness to our present Patriotism.”

Men Doe Book Reason Form Greater Particular Circumstances Succeed Equal Species Harm Cease Impression Nonsense Absurdity Wickedness Dominion

Book:The Letters of David Hume:

Source: The Letters of David Hume:

“The more tremendous the divinity is represented, the more tame and submissive do men become his ministers: And the more unaccountable the measures of acceptance required by him, the more necessary does it become to abandon our natural reason, and yield to their ghostly guidance and direction.”

Men Doe Reason Natural Acceptance Ministers Guidance Divinity Abandon Yield Submissive Guidance And Direction

Book:The Natural History of Religion

Source: The Natural History of Religion

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”

Reason Philosophy Action Passion Ought Office Ethics Slave Philosopher

Author:David Hume

“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.”

Littles Reason Desire Understanding Rooms Willing Highest Reflection Affection Addresses Eloquence Captivating

Author:David Hume

“The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.”

Reason Morality Ethics Conclusion Pregnancy

Author:David Hume

“Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.”

Persons Reason Natural Imperfection

Book:The Philosophical Works: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Ed. Publ. by the Author

Source: The Philosophical Works: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Ed. Publ. by the Author

“It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.”

World Reason Whole Destruction Philosophical Fingers Contrary Whole World

Author:David Hume

“It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.”

Life Reason Guides Customs

Author:David Hume

“If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

“As every inquiry which regards religion is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning it origin in human nature.”

Humans Two Reason Challenges Attention Human Nature Particular Importance Regard Foundation Wit Inquiry

Book:An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion

Source: An inquiry concerning human understanding. A dissertation on the passions. An inquiry concerning the principles of morals. The natural history of religion

“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.”

Reason Philosophy Passion Ought Slave

Author:David Hume

“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?”