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Eloquence, when in its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection.

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
Room
Rooms
Littles
Reason
Eloquence
Little
Pitch
Leaves
Reflection
Highest

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Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.
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The feelings of our heart, the agitation of our passions, the vehemence of our affections, dissipate all its conclusions, and reduce the profound philosopher to a mere plebeian
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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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The supposition that the future resembles the past, is not founded on arguments of any kind, but is derived entirely from habit.
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History is the discovering of the principles of human nature.
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Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
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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 life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.
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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.
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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.
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There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it.
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Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains.
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It is with books as with women, where a certain plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging than that glare of paint and airs and apparel which may dazzle the eye, but reaches not the affections.
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A propensity to hope and joy is real riches one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
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To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see all this is nothing but to perceive.
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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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Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escap'd shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances.
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I never asserted such an absurd thing as that things arise without a cause.
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When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken.
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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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