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He sees such a desperate rapaciousness prevail such a disregard to equity, such contempt of order, such stupid blindness to future consequences, as must immediately have the most tragical conclusion, and most terminate in destruction to the greater number, and in a total dissolution of society to the rest.

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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Philosopher
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Edinburgh
Scotland
David Home
Hume
Must
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Consequences
Dissolution
Stupid
Conclusion
Disregard
Rest
Total
Prevail
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Ethics
Equity
Greater
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Order
Morality
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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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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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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.
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Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived.
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Avarice, the spur of industry.
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Accurate and just reasoning is the only catholic remedy, fitted for all persons and all dispositions and is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom.
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Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.
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For the purposes of life and conduct, and society, a little good sense is surely better than all this genius, and a little good humour than this extreme sensibility.
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The free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any environment.
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There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves.
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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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I do not think a philosopher who would apply himself so earnestly to the explaining the ultimate principles of the soul, would show himself a great master in the very science of human nature, which he pretends to explain, or very knowing in what is naturally satisfactory to the mind of man.
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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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Rousseau was mad but influential Hume was sane but had no followers.
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Does a man of sense run after every silly tale of hobgoblins or fairies, and canvass particularly the evidence? I never knew anyone, that examined and deliberated about nonsense who did not believe it before the end of his enquiries.
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Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.
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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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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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Reasoning from the common course of nature, and without supposing any new interposition of the Supreme Cause, which ought always to be excluded from philosophy what is incorruptible must also be ingenerable. The soul, therefore, if immortal, existed before our birth: And if the former existence noways concerned us, neither will the latter.
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Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.
David Hume