Scottish Philosopher Quotes

David Hume

Thomas Carlyle

James Mill

Adam Ferguson

Thomas Reid

Alexander Bain

Alasdair MacIntyre

The history of mankind is confined within a limited period, and from every quarter brings an intimation that human affairs have had a beginning.

Terror itself, when once grown transcendental, becomes a kind of courage; as frost sufficiently intense, according to the poet Milton, will burn.

We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but 'tis vain to ask. Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.

It becomes harder and harder to say where the world stops and the person begins.

'Twas thus by the glare of false science betray'd, That leads, to bewilder; and dazzles, to blind...

It is the nature of science to be more or less dry; until its commanding power is felt the path of the learner is thorny.

What our laws show is the extent and degree to which conflict has to be suppressed.

Alasdair MacIntyre

For the turning away of the simple, shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

Every indication of wisdom, taken from the effect, is equally an indication of power to execute what wisdom planned.

If all men by nature desire to know, then they desire most of all the greatest knowledge of science.

Of the laws of nature, on which the condition of man depends, that which is attended with the greatest number of consequences, is the necessity of labor for obtaining the means of subsistence, as well as the means of the greatest part of our pleasure.

He, who will not reason, is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, who dares not, is a slave.

William Drummond of Logiealmond

From the point of view of the pure morphologist the recapitulation theory is an instrument of research enabling him to reconstruct probable lines of descent; from the standpoint of the student of development and heredity the fact of recapitulation is a difficult problem whose solution would perhaps give the key to a true understanding of the real nature of heredity.

Those who have studied mathematics much, and no other science, are apt to grow so fond of them, as to believe that there is no certainty in any other science, nor any other axioms than those of Euclid.

James Burnett, Lord Monboddo