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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.

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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What praise is implied in the simple epithet useful! What reproach in the contrary.
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Courage, of all national qualities, is the most precarious because it is exerted only at intervals, and by a few in every nation whereas industry, knowledge, civility, may be of constant and universal use, and for several ages, may become habitual to the whole people.
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When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken.
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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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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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Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
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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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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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There is, indeed a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are corrected by common sense and reflection.
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Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the press.
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Time is a perishable commodity.
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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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When I am convinced of any principle, it is only an idea which strikes more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence.
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the senses alone are not implicitly to be depended on. We must correct their evidence by reason, and by considerations, derived from the nature of the medium, the distance of the object, and the disposition of the organ, in order to render them, within their sphere, the proper criteria of truth and falsehood.
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There is nothing, in itself, valuable or despicable, desirable or hateful, beautiful or deformed but that these attributes arise from the particular constitution and fabric of human sentiment and affection.
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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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I know with certainty, that [an honest man] is not to put his hand into the fire, and hold it there, till it be consumed: And thisevent, I think I can foretell with the same assurance, as that, if he throw himself out at the window, and meet with no obstruction, he will not remain a moment suspended in the air.
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We make allowance for a certain degree of selfishness in men because we know it to be inseparable from human nature, and inherent in our frame and constitution. By this reflexion we correct those sentiments of blame, which so naturally arise upon any opposition.
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..when, in my philosophical disquisitions, I deny a providence and a future state, I undermine not the foundations of society, but advance principles, which they themselves, upon their own topics, if they argue consistently, must allow to be solid and satisfactory.
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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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