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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.

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
Humility
Deliberation
Views
Commonly
Alone
Absurdity
Passion
Mistaken
Sure
Arrogant
Without
Arrogance
Giving
Proper
Grossest
Men
Secure
Absurdities

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It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have preference above the accurate.
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History is the discovering of the principles of human nature.
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Every movement of the theater by a skilful poet is communicated, as it were, by magic, to the spectators who weep, tremble, resent, rejoice, and are inflamed with all the variety of passions which actuate the several personages of the drama.
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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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That the sun shines tomorrow is a judgement that is as true as the contrary judgement.
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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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The sceptics assert, though absurdly, that the origin of all religious worship was derived from the utility of inanimate objects,as the sun and moon, to the support and well-being of mankind.
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I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another.
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Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.
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If morality had naturally no influence on human passions and actions, it were in vain to take such pains to inculcate it and nothing would be more fruitless than that multitude of rules and precepts with which all moralists abound.
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The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.
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The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of scepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life.
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All morality depends upon our sentiments and when any action or quality of the mind pleases us after a certain manner we say it is virtuous and when the neglect or nonperformance of it displeases us after a like manner, we say that we lie under an obligation to perform it.
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Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
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