Quotes By David Hume

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.

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.

A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.

Truth springs from argument amongst friends.

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

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

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.

To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian.

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.

Everything in the world is purchased by labor.

It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

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.

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.

To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive.

Avarice, the spur of industry.

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

Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.

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.

The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.

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

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.

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.

It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.

He is happy whom circumstances suit his temper; but he Is more excellent who suits his temper to any circumstance.

Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.

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

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.

Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.

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.