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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.

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
Found
Advantages
Three
Fancy
Seems
Kinds
Kind
Advantage
Seem
Virtue
Amuses
Understanding
Strengthens
History
Improves

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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.
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Everything is sold to skill and labor and where nature furnishes the materials, they are still rude and unfinished, till industry, ever active and intelligent, refines them from their brute state, and fits them for human use and convenience.
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The free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any environment.
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While Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed at the same time the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity, in which they ever did and ever will remain.
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It seems to me, that the only Objects of the abstract Sciences or of Demonstration is Quantity and Number, and that all Attempts to extend this more perfect Species of Knowledge beyond these Bounds are mere Sophistry and Illusion.
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All power, even the most despotic, rests ultimately on opinion.
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What praise is implied in the simple epithet useful! What reproach in the contrary.
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Men often act knowingly against their interest.
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A man posing for a painting.
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The simplest and most obvious cause which can there be assigned for any phenomena, is probably the true one.
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Art may make a suite of clothes, but nature must produce a man.
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Mohammed praises [instances of] tretchery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, and bigotry that are utterly incompatible with civilized society.
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Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appeared in that narrow compass.
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That the sun shines tomorrow is a judgement that is as true as the contrary judgement.
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Grief and disappointment give rise to anger, anger to envy, envy to malice, and malice to grief again, till the whole circle be completed.
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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.
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Examine the religious principles which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded that they are other than sick men's dreams.
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When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.
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Convulsions in nature, disorders, prodigies, miracles, though the most opposite of the plan of a wise superintendent, impress mankind with the strongest sentiments of religion.
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There is no such thing as freedom of choice unless there is freedom to refuse.
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