Date: January 1739

"This is the universe of the imagination, nor have we any idea but what is there produc’d."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"And indeed were they content with lamenting that ignorance, which we still lie under in the most important questions that can come before the tribunal of human reason, there are few, who have an acquaintance with the sciences, that would not readily agree with them."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"Here then is the only expedient, from which we can hope for success in our philosophical researches, to leave the tedious lingering method, which we have hitherto followed, and instead of taking now and then a castle or village on the frontier, to march up directly to the capital or center of th...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"For a like reason we feel a difficulty in mounting, and pass not without a kind of reluctance from the inferior to that which is situated above it; as if our ideas acquired a kind of gravity from their objects."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"Since the imagination, therefore, in running from low to high, finds an opposition in its internal qualities and principles, and since the soul, when elevated with joy and courage, in a manner seeks opposition, and throws itself with alacrity into any scene of thought or action where its courage...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and even in common life, than to talk of the combat of passion and reason, to give the preference to reason, and assert that men are only so far virtuous as they conform themselves to its dictates."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"Nothing can oppose or retard the impulse of passion, but a contrary impulse; and if this contrary impulse ever arises from reason, that latter faculty must have an original influence on the will, and must be able to cause, as well as hinder, any act of volition."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"We speak not strictly and philosophically, when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"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."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"A trivial good may, from certain circumstances, produce a desire superior to what arises from the greatest and most valuable enjoyment; nor is there any thing more extraordinary in this, than in mechanics to see one pound weight raise up a hundred by the advantage of its situation."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)