Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both, that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow.
David HumeRead
The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Sensory experiences hold more significance than even the most vibrant thoughts.
David Hume emphasizes that actual sensory experiences, even if they are mundane, have more impact and truth than our most vivid and lively thoughts or ideas. This suggests the importance of real-life experiences over abstract thinking and highlights the limitations of intellectual reasoning when disconnected from sensory reality.
Themes
ThoughtSensationExperiencePhilosophyPerception
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a philosophy class to discuss the nature of knowledge.
More from David Hume
All quotes βEloquence, 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.
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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.
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The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness
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There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it.
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To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.
David HumeRead
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