David Hume Quotes

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

To philosopher and historian the madness and imbecile wickedness of mankind ought to appear ordinary events.

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.

The sweetest path of life leads through the avenues of learning, and whoever can open up the way for another, ought, so far, to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.

In a vain man, the smallest spark may kindle into the greatest flame, because the materials are always prepared for it.

Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting.

What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'.

The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.

Men often act knowingly against their interest.

No truth appears to me more evident than that beasts are endowed with thought and reason as well as men.

Of all sciences there is none where first appearances are more deceitful than in politics.

It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause.

A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.

Poets themselves, tho' liars by profession, always endeavour to give an air of truth to their fictions.

Barbarity, caprice; these qualities, however nominally disguised, we may universally observe from the ruling character of the deity in all regular religions.

The feelings of our heart, the agitation of our passions, the vehemence of our affections, dissipate all its conclusions, and reduce the profound philosopher to a mere plebeian

The bigotry of theologians is a malady which seems almost incurable.

When we reflect on the shortness and uncertainty of life, how despicable seem all our pursuits of happiness.

Superstition is an enemy to civil liberty.

While we are reasoning concerning life, life is gone.

Truth springs from argument amongst friends.

Nothing is pure and entire of a piece. All advantages are attended with disadvantages. A universal compensation prevails in all conditions of being and existence.

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.

A man posing for a painting.

The law always limits every power it gives.

In this sullen apathy neither true wisdom nor true happiness can be found.

The fact that different cultures have different practices no more refutes [moral] objectivism than the fact that water flows in different directions in different places refutes the law of gravity

Self-denial is a monkish virtue.

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.

Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.

This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.

Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived.

The greater part of mankind may be divided into two classes; that of shallow thinkers who fall short of the truth; and that of abstruse thinkers who go beyond it.

History is the discovering of the principles of human nature.

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.

And what is the greatest number? Number one.

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.

Praise never gives us much pleasure unless it concur with our own opinion, and extol us for those qualities in which we chiefly excel.

Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.

No man ever threw away life while it was worth keeping.

The simplest and most obvious cause which can there be assigned for any phenomena, is probably the true one.

Art may make a suite of clothes, but nature must produce a man.

The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds.

Uncommon expressions are a disfigurement rather than an embellishment of discourse.

Where ambition can cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of passions

If ... the past may be no Rule for the future, all Experience becomes useless and can give rise to no Inferences or Conclusions.

Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers.

It affords a violent prejudice against almost every science, that no prudent man, however sure of his principles, dares prophesy concerning any event, or foretell the remote consequences of things.

Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains.