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Examine the religious principles which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded that they are other than sick men's dreams.

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
World
Dreams
Principles
Religious
Prevailed
Religion
Persuaded
Fact
Scarcely
Facts
Examine
Dream
Atheism
Men
Sick

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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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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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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.
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Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous those in philosophy only ridiculous.
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A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.
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Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.
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Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appeared in that narrow compass.
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The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.
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The free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any environment.
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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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Men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions.
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A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
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Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.
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A CAUSE is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.
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In the sphere of natural investigation, as in poetry and painting, the delineation of that which appeals most strongly to the imagination, derives its collective interest from the vivid truthfulness with which the individual features are portrayed.
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Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact it must be acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors.
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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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What praise is implied in the simple epithet useful! What reproach in the contrary.
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The most pernicious of all taxes are the arbitrary.
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