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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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He is happy whom circumstances suit his temper but he Is more excellent who suits his temper to any circumstance.
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What praise is implied in the simple epithet useful! What reproach in the contrary.
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Vanity is so closely allied to virtue, and to love the fame of laudable actions approaches so near the love of laudable actions for their own sake, that these passions are more capable of mixture than any other kinds of affection and it is almost impossible to have the latter without some degree of the former.
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Men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions.
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Your corn is ripe today mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both, that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow.
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[priests are] the pretenders to power and dominion, and to a superior sanctity of character, distinct from virtue and good morals.
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Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.
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There is no such thing as freedom of choice unless there is freedom to refuse.
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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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Such is the nature of novelty that where anything pleases it becomes doubly agreeable if new but if it displeases, it is doubly displeasing on that very account.
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The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.
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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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To invent without scruple a new principle to every new phenomenon, instead of adapting it to the old to overload our hypothesis with a variety of this kind, are certain proofs that none of these principles is the just one, and that we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth.
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Every wise, just, and mild government, by rendering the condition of its subjects easy and secure, will always abound most in people, as well as in commodities and riches.
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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 is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age. But to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing
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Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.
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Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.
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