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Almost every one has a predominant inclination, to which his other desires and affections submit, and which governs him, though perhaps with some intervals, though the whole course of his life.

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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Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous those in philosophy only ridiculous.
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Art may make a suite of clothes, but nature must produce a man.
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It seems certain, that though a man, in a flush of humour, after intense reflection on the many contradictions and imperfections of human reason, may entirely renounce all belief and opinion, it is impossible for him to persevere in this total scepticism, or make it appear in his conduct for a few hours.
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When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.
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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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In all the events of life, we ought still to preserve our scepticism. If we believe that fire warms, or water refreshes, it is only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise.
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While Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed at the same time the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity, in which they ever did and ever will remain.
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When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?
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All this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us the by senses and experience.
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All power, even the most despotic, rests ultimately on opinion.
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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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A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
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It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause.
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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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