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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.

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
Path
Benefactors
Open
Avenues
Another
Sweetest
Way
Whoever
Life
Leads
Mankind
Ought
Benefactor
Learning
Esteemed

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All power, even the most despotic, rests ultimately on opinion.
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Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.
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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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Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone, which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past.
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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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Rousseau was mad but influential Hume was sane but had no followers.
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The identity that we ascribe to things is only a fictitious one, established by the mind, not a peculiar nature belonging to what we’re talking about.
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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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Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.
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The greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere.
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A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.
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When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken.
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Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
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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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The feelings of our heart, the agitation of our passions, the vehemence of our affections, dissipate all its conclusions, and reduce the profound philosopher to a mere plebeian
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A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
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It is with books as with women, where a certain plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging than that glare of paint and airs and apparel which may dazzle the eye, but reaches not the affections.
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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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In ancient times, bodily strength and dexterity, being of greater use and importance in war, was also much more esteemed and valued, than at present. ... In short, the different ranks of men are, in a great measure, regulated by riches.
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There is no such thing as freedom of choice unless there is freedom to refuse.
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