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
Disbelief in futurity loosens in a great measure the ties of morality, and may be for that reason pernicious to the peace of civil society.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Disbelief in the future undermines moral responsibility and can harm society's stability.
David Hume's quote explores the idea that if individuals do not believe in the future consequences of their actions, they may act without moral restraint. This lack of accountability can lead to disruptions in social order, as morality is often tied to the understanding that our actions have lasting effects beyond the immediate present.
Themes
MoralityFutureSocietyResponsibilityCivilDisbelief
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about ethical decision-making, one could reference this quote to highlight the importance of considering the long-term effects of our actions.
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.
David HumeRead
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.
David HumeRead
The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness
David HumeRead
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.
David HumeRead
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
Similar quotes
The secret of image - worship is that you are trying to develop your vision of Divinity in one thing.
Swami VivekanandaRead
Without you, without your onslaughts, without your uprootings of us, we should remain all our lives inert, stagnant, puerile, ignorant both of ourselves and of God. You who batter us and then dress our wounds, you who resist us and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shackle and liberate, the sap of our souls, the hand of God, the flesh of Christ: it is you, matter, that I bless.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
This is the gravest danger that today threatens civilization: State intervention; the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State, that is to say, of spontaneous historical action, which in the long run sustains, nourishes, and impels human destinies.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.
Dante AlighieriRead
Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold it's great proportions.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
Let us face a pluralistic world in which there are no universal churches, no single remedy for all diseases, no one way to teach or write or sing, no magic diet, no world poets, and no chosen races, but only the wretched and wonderfully diversified human race.
Jacques BarzunRead