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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.

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
Wisdom
Municipal
Law
Restraining
Interest
Supply
Natural
Submit
Individual
Private
Make
Laws
Men
Liberty
Time
Public

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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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Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.
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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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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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The Crusades - the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation.
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Such a superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits the pre-eminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.
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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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Every disastrous accident alarms us, and sets us on enquiries concerning the principles whence it arose: Apprehensions spring up with regard to futurity: And the mind, sunk into diffidence, terror, and melancholy, has recourse to every method of appeasing those secret intelligent powers, on whom our fortune is supposed entirely to depend.
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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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Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.
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Disbelief in futurity loosens in a great measure the ties of morality, and may be for that reason pernicious to the peace of civil society.
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The free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any environment.
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The greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere.
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A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
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Men often act knowingly against their interest.
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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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The most pernicious of all taxes are the arbitrary.
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If morality had naturally no influence on human passions and actions, it were in vain to take such pains to inculcate it and nothing would be more fruitless than that multitude of rules and precepts with which all moralists abound.
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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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