Quotes by David Hume

• Men often act knowingly against their interest.
• 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.
• Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.
• 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.
• Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.
• Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.
• Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.
• The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.
• The law always limits every power it gives.
• The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.
• It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.
• 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.
• This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.
• To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian.
• Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
• What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'.
• The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.
• Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.
• 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.
• A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
• A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.
• A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
• 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.
• And what is the greatest number? Number one.
• It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.
• Avarice, the spur of industry.
• Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.
• Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.
• Beauty is no quality in things themselves. It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.
• Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived.
• Human Nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.
• 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.
• 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.
• It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.
• 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.
• 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.
• He is happy whom circumstances suit his temper; but he Is more excellent who suits his temper to any circumstance.
• Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.
• Everything in the world is purchased by labor.
• 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.
• 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.
• Custom is the great guide to human life.
• Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.
• It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.