“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
“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.”
EducationAll Quotes by David Hume
“Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.”
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“Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.”
Beauty“This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.”
Alone“Men often act knowingly against their interest.”
Men“Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.”
Death“Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived.”
Beauty“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.”
Education“The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.”
Patriotism“Truth springs from argument amongst friends.”
Truth“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“Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.”
Knowledge“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“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“The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.”
Best“A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.”
Design“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“Human Nature is the only science of man and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.”
Nature“Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.”
Nature