David Hume Quotes

Sed nescio quo modo nihil tam absurde dici potest quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosphorum. (There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.)

There is an Indian story -- at least I heard it as an Indian story -- about an Englishman who, having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, asked (perhaps he was an ethnographer; it is the way they behave), what did the turtle rest on? Another turtle. And that turtle? 'Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down

The question of causality is complex. For some philosophers and physicists, time might not exist. And since cause-and-effect reasoning needs the concept of time - of one thing preceding another - the effort to establish causality is a mug's game, an infinite regression of increasingly unanswerable questions.

I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again 'I know that that’s a tree', pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: 'This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy.

Every man is fully satisfied that there is such a thing as truth, or he would not ask any question.

Reason cannot show itself more reasonable than to cease reasoning on things above reason.

Skepticism is like a microscope whose magnification is constantly increased: the sharp image that one begins with finally dissolves, because it is not possible to see ultimate things: their existence is only to be inferred.

If you look around the world and I can tell you right now that the majority of the planet is focused on certainty and significance. And those two absolutely guarantee unhappiness. Because if you're driven by significance, it doesn't matter what you achieve, it's never enough.

Philosophy is the rational expression of genius.

We all have a thirst for wonder. It's a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I'm saying is, you don't have to make stories up, you don't have to exaggerate. There's wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature's a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.

I wanted the chance to look again at very famous stories and see what made them work well, whether there were any ways in which they could be improved. Because the great thing about fairy tales and folk tales is that there is no authentic text.

I have decided, it is fruitless. For I am no longer sure of anything concerning my existance. A philosopher is a dead poet and a dying theologian.

How do you know that you are not part of a book? That someone's not reading your story right now?

Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

The thinker without a paradox is like a lover without a feeling: a paltry mediocrity.

Philosophy, the love of Wisdom, is at the very bottom defence against the incomprehensible.

Forever I shall be a stranger to myself. In psychology as in logic, there are truths but no truth.

Ultimate questions will always lie beyond the scope of empirical science as it is.

You ask me what life is. That's like asking what a carrot is. A carrot is a carrot, and there's nothing more to know.

One link in a chain explains the infinite chain.

Now all the mute objects of my life seem to tell my story, to stretch back in time, if I look closely enough.

Youth as glimpsed by its elders is a story that comes from afar, showing itself as either lovely to look at or a torment to endure.

I ask you, what is the use of having your "cake" if you can't eat it? What exactly are you supposed to do with it? Put it on your mantel and look at it? Cake is meant to be eaten and enjoyed.

Would all, who cherish such wild wishes, but look around them, they would oftenest find their sphere of duty, of prosperity, and happiness, within those precincts, and in that station where Providence itself has cast their lot. Happy they who read the riddle without a weary world-search, or a lifetime spent in vain!