Quotes from David Hume

It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity.

If my life be not my own, it were criminal for me to put it in danger, as well as to dispose of it; nor could one man deserve the appellation of hero, whom glory or friendship transports into the greatest dangers, and another merit the reproach of wretch or misereant who puts a period to his life, from the same or like motives.

When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have then giver views to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities.

the Roman Catholic Index of Prohibited Books, a list that came to include almost every significant work of post-medieval Western philosophy.

Nothing is more usual than for philosophers to encroach upon the province of grammarians; and to engage in disputes of words, while they imagine that they are handling controversies of the deepest importance and concern.

Here then we are first to consider a book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written in an age when they were still more barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and resembling those fabulous accounts, which every nation gives of its origin.

T]he Old Testament, [...] if considered as a general rule of conduct, would lead to consequences destructive of all principles of humanity and morality.

Beauty] exists merely in the mind which contemplates [things]; and each mind perceives a different beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others.

It's seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.

It is, therefore, a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.

The science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences. [All the other sciences] have a relation, greater or lesser, to human nature. 'Tis impossible to tell what changes and improvements we might make in these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force of human understanding, and could explain the nature of the ideas we employ, and of the operations we perform in our reason.

While Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed at the same time the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy, so agreeable to the natural vanity and curiosity of men; and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity, in which they ever did and ever will remain.

It is impious, says the modern European superstition, to put a period to our own life, and thereby rebel against our creator: and why not impious, say I, to build houses, cultivate the ground, or sail upon the ocean? In all these actions we employ our powers of mind and body to produce some innovation in the course of nature; and in non of them do we any more. They are all of them therefore equally innocent, or equally criminal.

our minds can create new ideas from the components which experience has already given us, by combining together our existing ideas in new ways or by shuffling the components of our existing ideas, but we are quite unable to form any completely new ideas beyond those that have already been given to us by sensation or feeling.

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

On belief in miracles) - "The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.

A] planet, wholly inhabited by spiders, (which is very possible)

Beauty in things exits merely in the mind which contemplates them.

Should a traveler, returning from a far country, bring us an account of men wholly different from any with whom we were ever acquainted, men who were entirely divested of avarice, ambition, or revenge, who knew no pleasure but friendship, generosity, and public spirit, we should immediately, from these circumstances, detect the falsehood and prove him a liar with the same certainty as if he had stuffed his narration with stories of centaurs and dragons, miracles and prodigies.

The victory is not gained by the men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters, drummers, and musicians of the army.

But where the ideas of morality and decency alter from one age to another, and where vicious manners are described, without being marked with the proper character of blame and disapprobation, this must be allowed to disfigure the poem, and to be a real deformity. I cannot, nor is it proper I should, enter into such sentiments; and however I may excuse the poet, on account of the manners of age, I can never relish the composition.

Hear the verbal protestations of all men: Nothing so certain as their religious tenets. Examine their lives: You will scarcely think that they repose the smallest confidence in them.

There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blamable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretense of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality.

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience as can be imagined.