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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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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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To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see all this is nothing but to perceive.
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Courage, of all national qualities, is the most precarious because it is exerted only at intervals, and by a few in every nation whereas industry, knowledge, civility, may be of constant and universal use, and for several ages, may become habitual to the whole people.
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Men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions.
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Fine writing, according to Mr. Addison, consists of sentiments which are natural without being obvious.
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Everything in the world is purchased by labor.
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No quality of human nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathize with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own.
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There is, indeed a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are corrected by common sense and reflection.
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Men often act knowingly against their interest.
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The free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any environment.
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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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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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Anything that is conceivable is possible.
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Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone, which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past.
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When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken.
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There is nothing, in itself, valuable or despicable, desirable or hateful, beautiful or deformed but that these attributes arise from the particular constitution and fabric of human sentiment and affection.
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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.
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History is the discovering of the principles of human nature.
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I do not have enough faith to believe there is no god.
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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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