The truth springs from arguments amongst friends.
David Hume
When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.
David Hume
He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper, but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to his circumstance.
David Hume
Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.
David Hume
A little philosophy makes a man an Atheist: a great deal converts him to religion.
David Hume
…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.
David Hume
Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
David Hume
It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.
David Hume
No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed.
David Hume
Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.
David Hume
Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
He is happy whom circumstances suit his temper; but he Is more excellent who suits his temper to any circumstance.
David Hume
To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
David Hume
A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.
David Hume
Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian.
David Hume
A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
And what is the greatest number? Number one.
David Hume
The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.
David Hume
This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
Avarice, the spur of industry.
David Hume
Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.
David Hume
Custom is the great guide to human life.
David Hume
Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.
David Hume
Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
David Hume
What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call ‘thought’.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.
David Hume
Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived.
David Hume
Beauty in things exists in the mind that contemplates them.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.
David Hume
Everything in the world is purchased by labor.
David Hume
Human Nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.
David Hume
It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.
David Hume
It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.
David Hume
It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.
David Hume
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.
David Hume
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. …’Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.
David Hume
David Hume Quotations (Part 2)
