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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.

David Hume

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David Hume
Age: 65 †
Born: 1711
Born: April 26
Died: 1776
Died: August 25
Economist
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Edinburgh
Scotland
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Among the arts of conversation no one pleases more than mutual deference or civility, which leads us to resign our own inclinations to those of our companions, and to curb and conceal that presumption and arrogance so natural to the human mind.
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It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors.
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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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The consequence of a very free commerce between the sexes, and of their living much together, will often terminate in intrigues and gallantry.
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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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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.
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Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous those in philosophy only ridiculous.
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Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients action, pleasure and indolence. And though these ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according to the disposition of the person, yet no one ingredient can be entirely wanting without destroying in some measure the relish of the whole composition.
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It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause.
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When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken.
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All power, even the most despotic, rests ultimately on opinion.
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Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients: action, pleasure and indolence.
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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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What praise is implied in the simple epithet useful! What reproach in the contrary.
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It seems certain, that though a man, in a flush of humour, after intense reflection on the many contradictions and imperfections of human reason, may entirely renounce all belief and opinion, it is impossible for him to persevere in this total scepticism, or make it appear in his conduct for a few hours.
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All inferences from experience... are effects of custom, not of reasoning.
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A propensity to hope and joy is real riches one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
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Art may make a suite of clothes, but nature must produce a man.
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The religious hypothesis, therefore, must be considered only as a particular method of accounting for the visible phenomena of the universe: but no just reasoner will ever presume to infer from it any single fact, and alter or add to the phenomena, in any single particular.
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