“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”

— David Hume , book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 4, Section 7
Source: A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 1: Of the understanding

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous." by David Hume?

David Hume 138

Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian 1711–1776

Related quotes

“You young maidens, too long constrained by a fanciful Virtue's absurd and dangerous bonds and by those of a disgusting religion, imitate the fiery Eugénie; be as quick as she to destroy, to spurn all those ridiculous precepts inculcated in you by imbecile parents.”

Marquis de Sade Philosophy in the Bedroom

To Libertines
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

“To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Variant: To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.
Source: Pensées

“Do not commence your exercises in philosophy in those regions where an error can deliver you over to the executioner.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

C 16
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook C (1772-1773)

“The objects of philosophy, it is true, are upon the whole the same as those of religion. In both the object is Truth, in that supreme sense in which God and God only is the Truth.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German philosopher

Philosophie ... hat zwar ihre Gegenstände zunächst mit der Religion gemeinschaftlich. Beide haben die Wahrheit zu ihrem Gegenstande, und zwar im höchsten Sinne - in dem, daß Gott die Wahrheit und er allein die Wahrheit ist.
Logic, Chapter 1

“Philosophy's error is to be too endurable.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

“The chief error in philosophy is overstatement.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Pt. I, ch. 1, sec. 1.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)

“The lesson of modern history—that Religions enjoy (are endowed with) the prerogative of perpetual youth while philosophies seldom outlast a generation.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Private notes, quoted in Herbert Butterfield, ‘Acton: His Training, Methods and Intellectual System’, in A. O. Sarkissian (ed.), Studies in Diplomatic History and Historiography in honour of G. P. Gooch, C.H. (1961), p. 195
Undated

“I have argued that a religion or a philosophy cannot speak about facts of the world – if it does, it is now or will eventually be wrong – but it can and should speak about the relevance and ranking of facts and observations.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: Philosophy of Lisp programmers http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/70c2703e68baae46 (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

“We often speak of Theosophy as not in itself a religion, but the truth which lies behind all religions alike. That is so; yet, from another point of view, we may surely say that it is at once a philosophy, a religion and a science.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

A Textbook of Theosophy (1912), Chapter One

“Machiavel's The Prince is to ethics what the work of Spinoza is to faith. Spinoza sapped the fundamentals of faith, and drained the spirit of religion; Machiavel corrupted policy, and undertook to destroy the precepts of healthy morals: the errors of the first were only errors of speculation, but those of the other had a practical thrust. […] I always have regarded The Prince as one of the most dangerous works which were spread in the world; it is a book which falls naturally into the hands of princes, and of those who have a taste for policy. […] There is a real injustice in concluding that the rotten apples are representative of all of them.”

Frederick II of Prussia book Anti-Machiavel

Foreword
Anti-Machiavel

“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

David Hume 138

Related quotes

Related topics