David Hume
The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.Collection: Patriotism
Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived.Collection: Beauty
Every wise, just, and mild government, by rendering the condition of its subjects easy and secure, will always abound most in people, as well as in commodities and riches.Collection: Government
Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.Collection: Learning
A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.Collection: Design
A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.Collection: Respect
Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.Collection: Beauty
Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.Collection: Death
The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.Collection: Best
The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.Collection: Religion
To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive.Collection: Love
The law always limits every power it gives.Collection: Power
Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.Collection: Great
Truth springs from argument amongst friends.Collection: Truth
Men often act knowingly against their interest.Collection: Men
This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.Collection: Society
Human Nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.Collection: Nature
Belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain.Collection: Imagination
Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.Collection: Religion
There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves.Collection: Learning
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.
It's when we start working together that the real healing takes place... it's when we start spilling our sweat, and not our blood.
A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.
A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.
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.
It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.
It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.
And what is the greatest number? Number one.
Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.
What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'.
No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.
It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.
Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.
He is happy whom circumstances suit his temper; but he Is more excellent who suits his temper to any circumstance.
Custom is the great guide to human life.
The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.
Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.
I have written on all sorts of subjects... yet I have no enemies; except indeed all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians.
The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue.
Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.
Eloquence, 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.
Everything in the world is purchased by labor.
The chief benefit, which results from philosophy, arises in an indirect manner, and proceeds more from its secret, insensible influence, than from its immediate application.
To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian.
Men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions.
No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed.
Avarice, the spur of industry.
Accuracy is, in every case, advantageous to beauty, and just reasoning to delicate sentiment. In vain would we exalt the one by depreciating the other.