Hume, David

"That politics may be reduced to a science, is no very great compliment to the science."

"The human understanding is not a straight line, but rather a network of intersecting principles."

"Death is but the natural conclusion to a well-lived life."

"Custom is the great guide of human life."

"We must renounce the theory that the mind is furnished with a series of innate ideas and principles."

"The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster."

"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions."

"Beauty is no quality in things themselves; it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them."

"All knowledge resolves itself into probability."

"Generally speaking, the errors and inaccuracies of old historians are discovered by the rarity and unusualness of the facts they relate."

"There is no impossibility in what we conceive."

"Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness."

"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."

"The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance."

"Nothing is more useful than for writers, even of moral or political subjects, to correct the mistakes that arise in theory by consulting the practice."

"Morality is nothing but a collection of political virtues."

"We ought to renounce this unhappy disposition, which we have of always inquiring into ends and purposes."

"The natural obligation of every man is to promote the happiness of all with whom he is acquainted."

"Superstition is much more bold in its assertions than philosophy, and much more vain in its pretences."

"Nothing can be more contrary to religion than the belief of a Sceptic."

"The greater part of mankind may be divided into two classes; that of shallow thinkers who fall short of the truth, and that of abstruse thinkers who go beyond it."

"Commerce is really fatal to morality; the spirit of trade is incompatible with the true spirit of virtue."

"An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding opens a new light into human nature."

"Common sense is founded on the ordinary working of human nature."

"The chief advantage of knowledge lies in being able to instil virtue."

"As long as we confine our speculations to trade, we may safely pronounce them just and reasonable."

"The corruption of the best things produces the worst."

"Sorrow wrings from us stronger emotions than joy."

"Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it."

"Ignorance is the source of all misery."