Q0337

David Hume

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Custom, then, is the great guide of human life.
Thinker David Hume
School Empiricism
Source Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding V.1
Theme Society
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding V.1, within the tradition of Empiricism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of society, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In David Hume's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: David Hume. (n.d.). Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0337

MLA: David Hume. “Custom, then, is the great guide of human….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0337.

Chicago: David Hume. “Custom, then, is the great guide of human….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0337.

Same thinker

More from David Hume

  1. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
  2. A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
  3. For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other.
  4. Reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals.
  5. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.

All quotations by David Hume

Same theme

More on society

  1. Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
  2. Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent.
  3. Study problems, import theories, reorganize the national heritage, and recreate civilization.
  4. When the granaries are full, people know ritual and restraint; when food and clothing are sufficient, they know honor and shame.
  5. Toward the past history of one’s own country, one should hold a warmth of feeling and a sense of respect.

Browse the society theme