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What praise is implied in the simple epithet useful! What reproach in the contrary.

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
Implied
Reproach
Usefulness
Useful
Contrary
Praise
Simple
Epithet

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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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Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
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Fine writing, according to Mr. Addison, consists of sentiments which are natural without being obvious.
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The law always limits every power it gives.
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Eloquence, when in its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection.
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What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian, according to the experience, what we have had of mankind?
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The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.
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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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All power, even the most despotic, rests ultimately on opinion.
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It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age. But to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing
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All knowledge resolves itself into probability. ... In every judgment, which we can form concerning probability, as well as concerning knowledge, we ought always to correct the first judgment deriv'd from the nature of the object, by another judgment, deriv'd from the nature of the understanding.
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The whole [of religion] is a riddle, an ænigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the onlyresult of our most accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject.
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It affords a violent prejudice against almost every science, that no prudent man, however sure of his principles, dares prophesy concerning any event, or foretell the remote consequences of things.
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It is... a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.
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Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.
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In the sphere of natural investigation, as in poetry and painting, the delineation of that which appeals most strongly to the imagination, derives its collective interest from the vivid truthfulness with which the individual features are portrayed.
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To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.
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The simplest and most obvious cause which can there be assigned for any phenomena, is probably the true one.
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The stability of modern governments above the ancient, and the accuracy of modern philosophy, have improved, and probably will still improve, by similar gradations.
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Art may make a suite of clothes, but nature must produce a man.
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