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Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.

David Hume

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David Hume
Age: 65 †
Born: 1711
Born: April 26
Died: 1776
Died: August 25
Economist
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Edinburgh
Scotland
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That the sun shines tomorrow is a judgement that is as true as the contrary judgement.
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Habit may lead us to belief and expectation but not to the knowledge, and still less to the understanding, of lawful relations.
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It is more rational to suspect knavery and folly than to discount, at a stroke, everything that past experience has taught me about the way things actually work
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Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous those in philosophy only ridiculous.
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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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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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The consequence of a very free commerce between the sexes, and of their living much together, will often terminate in intrigues and gallantry.
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Enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of liberty as superstition,on the contrary, renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery.
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All knowledge resolves itself into probability. ... In every judgment, which we can form concerning probability, as well as concerning knowledge, we ought always to correct the first judgment deriv'd from the nature of the object, by another judgment, deriv'd from the nature of the understanding.
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.. the voice of nature and experience seems plainly to oppose the selfish theory.
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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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For the purposes of life and conduct, and society, a little good sense is surely better than all this genius, and a little good humour than this extreme sensibility.
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Self-denial is a monkish virtue.
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What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present it on all occasions but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.
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The sweetest path of life leads through the avenues of learning, and whoever can open up the way for another, ought, so far, to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.
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What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian, according to the experience, what we have had of mankind?
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Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escap'd shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances.
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The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.
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Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.
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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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