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The law always limits every power it gives.

David Hume

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David Hume
Age: 65 †
Born: 1711
Born: April 26
Died: 1776
Died: August 25
Economist
Essayist
Historian
Librarian
Philosopher
Writer
Edinburgh
Scotland
David Home
Hume
Law
Power
Giving
Every
Always
Philosophical
Limits
Gives

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The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.
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Disbelief in futurity loosens in a great measure the ties of morality, and may be for that reason pernicious to the peace of civil society.
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Liberty is a blessing so inestimable, that, wherever there appears any probability of recovering it, a nation may willingly run many hazards, and ought not even to repine at the greatest effusion of blood or dissipation of treasure.
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The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty and, by proper representations of the deformity of vice and beauty of virtue, beget correspondent habits, and engage us to avoid the one, and embrace the other.
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Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting.
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We need only reflect on what has been prov'd at large, that we are never sensible of any connexion betwixt causes and effects, and that 'tis only by our experience of their constant conjunction, we can arrive at any knowledge of this relation.
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Every disastrous accident alarms us, and sets us on enquiries concerning the principles whence it arose: Apprehensions spring up with regard to futurity: And the mind, sunk into diffidence, terror, and melancholy, has recourse to every method of appeasing those secret intelligent powers, on whom our fortune is supposed entirely to depend.
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That the corruption of the best thing produces the worst, is grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among other instances, by the pernicious effects of superstition and enthusiasm, the corruptions of true religion.
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No quality of human nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathize with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own.
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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.
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It is... a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.
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In the sphere of natural investigation, as in poetry and painting, the delineation of that which appeals most strongly to the imagination, derives its collective interest from the vivid truthfulness with which the individual features are portrayed.
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Almost every one has a predominant inclination, to which his other desires and affections submit, and which governs him, though perhaps with some intervals, though the whole course of his life.
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It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause
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Self-denial is a monkish virtue.
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That the sun shines tomorrow is a judgement that is as true as the contrary judgement.
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If the religious spirit be ever mentioned in any historical narration, we are sure to meet afterwards with a detail of the miseries which attend it. And no period of time can be happier or more prosperous, than those in which it is never regarded or heard of.
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..when, in my philosophical disquisitions, I deny a providence and a future state, I undermine not the foundations of society, but advance principles, which they themselves, upon their own topics, if they argue consistently, must allow to be solid and satisfactory.
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Nothing is more favorable to the rise of politeness and learning, than a number of neighboring and independent states, connected together by commerce and policy.
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I may venture to affirm the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.
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