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It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors.

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
David Home
Hume
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Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds on which it is commonly founded.
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The whole of natural theologyresolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous proposition, That the cause or causesof order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence.
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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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I do not have enough faith to believe there is no god.
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All inferences from experience... are effects of custom, not of reasoning.
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Riches are valuable at all times, and to all men, because they always purchase pleasures such as men are accustomed to and desire nor can anything restrain or regulate the love of money but a sense of honor and virtue, which, if it be not nearly equal at all times, will naturally abound most in ages of knowledge and refinement.
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To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian.
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That the corruption of the best thing produces the worst, is grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among other instances, by the pernicious effects of superstition and enthusiasm, the corruptions of true religion.
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When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken.
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All morality depends upon our sentiments and when any action or quality of the mind pleases us after a certain manner we say it is virtuous and when the neglect or nonperformance of it displeases us after a like manner, we say that we lie under an obligation to perform it.
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The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of scepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life.
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Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients action, pleasure and indolence. And though these ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according to the disposition of the person, yet no one ingredient can be entirely wanting without destroying in some measure the relish of the whole composition.
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We need only reflect on what has been prov'd at large, that we are never sensible of any connexion betwixt causes and effects, and that 'tis only by our experience of their constant conjunction, we can arrive at any knowledge of this relation.
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Municipal laws are a supply to the wisdom of each individual and, at the same time, by restraining the natural liberty of men, make private interest submit to the interest of the public.
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Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients: action, pleasure and indolence.
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The most pernicious of all taxes are the arbitrary.
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Disbelief in futurity loosens in a great measure the ties of morality, and may be for that reason pernicious to the peace of civil society.
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Luxury, or a refinement on the pleasures and conveniences of life, had long been supposed the source of every corruption in government, and the immediate cause of faction, sedition, civil wars, and the total loss of liberty. It was, therefore, universally regarded as a vice, and was an object of declamation to all satyrists, and severe moralists.
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Virtue, like wholesome food, is better than poisons, however corrected.
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Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.
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