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It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age. But to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing
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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Historian
Librarian
Philosopher
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Edinburgh
Scotland
David Home
Hume
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More quotes by David Hume
An infinite number of real parts of time, passing in succession, and exhausted one after another, appears so evident a contradiction, that no man, one should think, whose judgement is not corrupted, instead of being improved, by the sciences, would ever be able to admit of it.
David Hume
God is an ever-present spirit guiding all that happens to a wise and holy end.
David Hume
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?
David Hume
Nothing is more favorable to the rise of politeness and learning, than a number of neighboring and independent states, connected together by commerce and policy.
David Hume
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
The greater part of mankind may be divided into two classes that of shallow thinkers who fall short of the truth and that of abstruse thinkers who go beyond it.
David Hume
What praise is implied in the simple epithet useful! What reproach in the contrary.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
The Crusades - the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation.
David Hume
Among the arts of conversation no one pleases more than mutual deference or civility, which leads us to resign our own inclinations to those of our companions, and to curb and conceal that presumption and arrogance so natural to the human mind.
David Hume
And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
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.
David Hume
It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause
David Hume
That the sun shines tomorrow is a judgement that is as true as the contrary judgement.
David Hume
Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.
David Hume
Barbarity, caprice these qualities, however nominally disguised, we may universally observe from the ruling character of the deity in all regular religions.
David Hume
If morality had naturally no influence on human passions and actions, it were in vain to take such pains to inculcate it and nothing would be more fruitless than that multitude of rules and precepts with which all moralists abound.
David Hume
Nothing more powerfully excites any affection than to conceal some part of its object, by throwing it into a kind of shade, whichat the same time that it shows enough to prepossess us in favour of the object, leaves still some work for the imagination.
David Hume