A Quote by David Hume

Upon the whole, necessity is something, that exists in the mind, not in objects; nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it, consider'd as a quality in bodies. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of thought to pass from cause to effects and effects to causes, according to their experienc'd union.

David Hume

Quote Topics

According Bodies Cause Causes Consider Determination Distant Effects Either Ever Exists Form Idea Mind Most Necessity No Idea Nor Nothing Objects Pass Possible Quality Something Thought Union Us Whole

Quote Author

David Hume
Scottish - Philosopher
May 7, 1711 - August 25, 1776

Manhood begins when we have in any way made truce with Necessity; begins even when we have surrendered to Necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to Necessity; and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in Necessity we are free.

Thomas Carlyle

What a sublime idea of the infinite might of the great Architect, the Cause of all causes, the Father of all fathers, the Ens Entium! For if we would compare the Infinite, it would surely require a greater Infinite to cause the causes of effects than to produce the effects themselves.

August Weismann

This is what writers mean when they say that the notion of cause involves the idea of necessity. If there be any meaning which confessedly belongs to the term necessity, it is unconditionalness. That which is necessary, that which must be, means that which will be, whatever supposition we may make in regard to all other things.

John Stuart Mill

It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.

James Madison

It is necessary to posit something which is necessary of itself, and has no cause of its necessity outside of itself but is the cause of necessity in other things. And all people call this thing God.

Thomas Aquinas

Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to necessity.

Epicurus

...it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death.

Charlotte Bronte

The necessity of war, which among human actions is the most lawless, hath some kind of affinity with the necessity of law.

Walter Raleigh

Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity.

W. H. Auden

...I recognize the widest possible difference-so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.

Frederick Douglass

It can be a necessary conceptual truth that pains are painful without this ruling out the physicalist thesis that immaterial minds are impossible or the thesis that conscious states supervene on physical states. The necessity involved in these claims is nomological necessity, not metaphysical necessity (assuming that these are different).

Elliott Sober

Mild is the slow necessity of death; The tranquil spirit fails beneath its grasp, Without a groan, almost without a fear, Resigned in peace to the necessity; Calm as a voyager to some distant land, And full of wonder, full of hope as he.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

It appears to me that one great cause of our difference in opinion on subjects which we often discuss is that you have always in mind the immediate and temporary effects of particular changes, whereas I put these effects quite aside, and fix my whole attention on the long-term effects that will result from them.

David Ricardo

God is intelligent; but in what manner? Man is intelligent by the act of reasoning, but the supreme intelligence lies under no necessity to reason. He requires neither premise nor consequences; nor even the simple form of a proposition. His knowledge is purely intuitive. He beholds equally what is and what will be. All truths are to Him as one idea, as all places are but one point, and all times one moment.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We've got to let the people know that there is a necessity, it's not even an option, it's a necessity to have a chiropractor. As much as it is a necessity to have a dentist, if you have a dentist for the family, you should have your chiropractor for the family.