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

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
Reason
Whole
Scratching
World
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Prefer
Philosophical
Contrary
Fingers
Destruction

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And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.
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I never asserted such an absurd thing as that things arise without a cause.
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The ages of greatest public spirit are not always eminent for private virtue.
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When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?
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The Crusades - the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation.
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There is, indeed a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are corrected by common sense and reflection.
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...virtue is attended by more peace of mind than vice, and meets with a more favourable reception from the world. I am sensible, that, according to the past experience of mankind, friendship is the chief joy of human life and moderation the only source of tranquillity and happiness.
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Art may make a suite of clothes, but nature must produce a man.
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There is nothing, in itself, valuable or despicable, desirable or hateful, beautiful or deformed but that these attributes arise from the particular constitution and fabric of human sentiment and affection.
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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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What praise is implied in the simple epithet useful! What reproach in the contrary.
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We make allowance for a certain degree of selfishness in men because we know it to be inseparable from human nature, and inherent in our frame and constitution. By this reflexion we correct those sentiments of blame, which so naturally arise upon any opposition.
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Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.
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Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous those in philosophy only ridiculous.
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I do not have enough faith to believe there is no god.
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I cannot but bless the memory of Julius Caesar, for the great esteem he expressed for fat men and his aversion to lean ones.
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The most pernicious of all taxes are the arbitrary.
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The law always limits every power it gives.
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