“Men often act knowingly against their interest.”
Men
“This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.”
AloneAll Quotes by 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.”
Alone“This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.”
Alone“Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.”
Death“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.”
History“The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.”
Best“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.”
Beauty“Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.”
Beauty“Human Nature is the only science of man and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.”
Nature“Truth springs from argument amongst friends.”
Truth“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.”
History“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.”
Nature“Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.”
Nature“Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.”
Knowledge“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.”
Government“Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.”
Truth“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.”
Good“A propensity to hope and joy is real riches one to fear and sorrow real poverty.”
Fear“The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.”
Patriotism“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.”
Religion