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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.

David Hume

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David Hume
Age: 65 †
Born: 1711
Born: April 26
Died: 1776
Died: August 25
Economist
Essayist
Historian
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Philosopher
Writer
Edinburgh
Scotland
David Home
Hume
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Stability
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Improve
Ancient
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Accuracy
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The law always limits every power it gives.
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The sceptics assert, though absurdly, that the origin of all religious worship was derived from the utility of inanimate objects,as the sun and moon, to the support and well-being of mankind.
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Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the press.
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Rousseau was mad but influential Hume was sane but had no followers.
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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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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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Almost every one has a predominant inclination, to which his other desires and affections submit, and which governs him, though perhaps with some intervals, though the whole course of his life.
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He is happy whom circumstances suit his temper but he Is more excellent who suits his temper to any circumstance.
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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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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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There is no such thing as freedom of choice unless there is freedom to refuse.
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It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause.
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Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.
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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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There is nothing, in itself, valuable or despicable, desirable or hateful, beautiful or deformed but that these attributes arise from the particular constitution and fabric of human sentiment and affection.
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We make allowance for a certain degree of selfishness in men because we know it to be inseparable from human nature, and inherent in our frame and constitution. By this reflexion we correct those sentiments of blame, which so naturally arise upon any opposition.
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Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.
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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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That the corruption of the best thing produces the worst, is grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among other instances, by the pernicious effects of superstition and enthusiasm, the corruptions of true religion.
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Barbarity, caprice these qualities, however nominally disguised, we may universally observe from the ruling character of the deity in all regular religions.
David Hume