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Self-denial is a monkish virtue.

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
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Hume
Denial
Virtue
Self

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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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Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.
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When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken.
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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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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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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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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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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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The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty and, by proper representations of the deformity of vice and beauty of virtue, beget correspondent habits, and engage us to avoid the one, and embrace the other.
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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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I may venture to affirm the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.
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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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I know with certainty, that [an honest man] is not to put his hand into the fire, and hold it there, till it be consumed: And thisevent, I think I can foretell with the same assurance, as that, if he throw himself out at the window, and meet with no obstruction, he will not remain a moment suspended in the air.
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A CAUSE is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.
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The law always limits every power it gives.
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Where is the reward of virtue? and what recompense has nature provided for such important sacrifices as those of life and fortune, which we must often make to it? O sons of earth! Are ye ignorant of the value of this celestial mistress? And do ye meanly inquire for her portion, when ye observe her genuine beauty?
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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.
David Hume
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It is... a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.
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.. that a rule, which, in speculation, may seem the most advantageous to society, may yet be found, in practice, totally pernicious and destructive.
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Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose existence is demonstrable.
David Hume