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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
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There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves.
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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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A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.
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Everything is sold to skill and labor and where nature furnishes the materials, they are still rude and unfinished, till industry, ever active and intelligent, refines them from their brute state, and fits them for human use and convenience.
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All morality depends upon our sentiments and when any action or quality of the mind pleases us after a certain manner we say it is virtuous and when the neglect or nonperformance of it displeases us after a like manner, we say that we lie under an obligation to perform it.
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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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A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.
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If God is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good, whence evil? If God wills to prevent evil but cannot, then He is not omnipotent. If He can prevent evil but does not, then he is not good. In either case he is not God.
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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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Enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of liberty as superstition,on the contrary, renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery.
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Nothing is more favorable to the rise of politeness and learning, than a number of neighboring and independent states, connected together by commerce and policy.
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The mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an enquiry or discourse concerning the others: and if we think ofa wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting on the pain which follows it.
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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.
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Anything that is conceivable is possible.
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An infinite number of real parts of time, passing in succession, and exhausted one after another, appears so evident a contradiction, that no man, one should think, whose judgement is not corrupted, instead of being improved, by the sciences, would ever be able to admit of it.
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The sweetest path of life leads through the avenues of learning, and whoever can open up the way for another, ought, so far, to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.
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I do not think a philosopher who would apply himself so earnestly to the explaining the ultimate principles of the soul, would show himself a great master in the very science of human nature, which he pretends to explain, or very knowing in what is naturally satisfactory to the mind of man.
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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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Grief and disappointment give rise to anger, anger to envy, envy to malice, and malice to grief again, till the whole circle be completed.
David Hume
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Riches are valuable at all times, and to all men, because they always purchase pleasures such as men are accustomed to and desire nor can anything restrain or regulate the love of money but a sense of honor and virtue, which, if it be not nearly equal at all times, will naturally abound most in ages of knowledge and refinement.
David Hume