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Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds on which it is commonly founded.

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
Always
Commonly
Thinking
Fatal
Expressing
Founded
Fraud
Priestly
Thoughts
Frauds
Liberty
Infallible
Power
Pious

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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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Everything in the world is purchased by labor.
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[A person’s] utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value.
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I cannot but bless the memory of Julius Caesar, for the great esteem he expressed for fat men and his aversion to lean ones.
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The ages of greatest public spirit are not always eminent for private virtue.
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If the religious spirit be ever mentioned in any historical narration, we are sure to meet afterwards with a detail of the miseries which attend it. And no period of time can be happier or more prosperous, than those in which it is never regarded or heard of.
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A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.
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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 senses alone are not implicitly to be depended on. We must correct their evidence by reason, and by considerations, derived from the nature of the medium, the distance of the object, and the disposition of the organ, in order to render them, within their sphere, the proper criteria of truth and falsehood.
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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.
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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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History is the discovering of the principles of human nature.
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It is... a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.
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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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Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
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It is more rational to suspect knavery and folly than to discount, at a stroke, everything that past experience has taught me about the way things actually work
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In ancient times, bodily strength and dexterity, being of greater use and importance in war, was also much more esteemed and valued, than at present. ... In short, the different ranks of men are, in a great measure, regulated by riches.
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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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Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting.
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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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