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Origins and Education
David Hume was born in 1711 in Edinburgh, into a modest landholding family associated with Ninewells in the Scottish Borders. His father died when he was young, and his mother oversaw the early education of her children. He enrolled at the University of Edinburgh while still a boy, studying classical literature, philosophy, and what passed for the sciences, but he did not take a degree. Originally spelling the family name Home, he later adopted the phonetic form Hume to suit English pronunciation. Intended for a career in law or commerce, he felt an overpowering inclination to letters and philosophy and resolved to live as a man of letters despite the uncertainty of that path.

Forming a Philosophical Project
After a brief and unhappy stint in a Bristol counting house in 1734, Hume left for France, living frugally at La Fleche, where he drafted the work that would anchor his philosophical reputation. The result, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739, 1740), attempted a comprehensive science of man grounded in observation. Its reception disappointed him; he later said it "fell dead-born from the press". He therefore recast its main doctrines in more accessible form: An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) and An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). Alongside these, his Essays, Moral and Political (1741, 1742) began to establish him as a lively essayist on commerce, politics, taste, and religion.

Travels, Service, and the Scottish Enlightenment
Hume never secured a university chair, his candidacies clouded by accusations of irreligion, but he became a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. He belonged to clubs and societies in Edinburgh where he conversed with Adam Smith, William Robertson, Lord Kames (Henry Home), and Adam Ferguson. From 1746 he served as secretary to General James St Clair, accompanying expeditions and diplomatic missions that took him to the continent. These travels broadened his horizons and introduced him to European intellectual networks.

Librarianship and the Historian of England
In 1752 Hume accepted the post of librarian to the Advocates Library in Edinburgh, a role that supplied the vast resources required for a major new undertaking: The History of England (1754, 1762). Spanning the period from the Roman invasion to the Glorious Revolution, the multivolume work made him financially independent and famous. His prose and judgments were admired and contested in equal measure. Critics accused him of party bias, yet the history became a staple of British letters. During these years he also issued Political Discourses (1752), influential essays on money, interest, commerce, and balance of trade that later economists, including his friend Adam Smith, studied with care.

Paris, London, and the Rousseau Affair
In 1763 Hume went to Paris as secretary to the British embassy under Lord Hertford. He moved easily among the philosophes, conversing with d Alembert, Diderot, and Baron d Holbach, and enjoying an uncommon celebrity. In 1766 he helped Jean-Jacques Rousseau find refuge in Britain, first in London and then in the countryside, but their friendship ended in a well-known quarrel marked by suspicion and public recrimination. Returning to public service, Hume served in London as an Under-Secretary of State (1767, 1768). Tiring of politics, he retired in 1769 to Edinburgh, settling in the growing New Town.

Philosophical Doctrines
Hume sought to explain the human mind by tracing ideas to their origin in sensory impressions. He argued that complex ideas are built from simpler ones and that the mind associates ideas by resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect. He gave the classic formulation of the problem of induction, noting that our expectation that the future will resemble the past rests not on reason but on habit. Similarly, causal inference reflects custom formed by constant conjunction, not any rational insight into necessary connection. In his account of personal identity, he described the self as a bundle of perceptions rather than a simple, unchanging substance, urging a mitigated skepticism that tempers doubt with the practical needs of life.

Moral Philosophy and Aesthetics
Hume placed sentiment at the root of morality. In the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, which he considered his best work, he held that virtues are traits agreeable or useful to oneself and others; moral approval flows from sympathy with human happiness. He classed justice as an artificial virtue dependent on social conventions, especially where scarcity and limited generosity prevail. In aesthetics he argued in Of the Standard of Taste that critical judgments require delicacy of sentiment, practice, freedom from prejudice, and comparison, and he explained how shared norms can emerge despite individual variation.

Religion and Controversy
Hume approached religion from historical and philosophical angles. The Natural History of Religion (1757) traced religious belief to natural human propensities, and the essay Of Miracles challenged the rational warrant for believing reports of supernatural events. Clerical opposition discouraged publication of certain pieces in his lifetime, notably Of Suicide and Of the Immortality of the Soul, which appeared posthumously. His Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, a probing exchange on the argument from design, was withheld until 1779 in accordance with his instructions. Critics such as George Campbell and William Warburton attacked his positions, while thinkers like Thomas Reid formulated a common-sense response to Humean skepticism.

Economics and Politics
Hume s political essays defended liberty without party zeal. He rejected social contract myths and emphasized the historical emergence of government and the rule of law. In economics he articulated mechanisms linking money, prices, and trade; his specie-flow analysis helped explain international adjustment under metallic currency regimes. These arguments influenced the next generation and intersected with themes developed by Adam Smith, whose The Wealth of Nations appeared in the year of Hume s death.

Final Years and Character
After returning to Edinburgh, Hume revised his works and enjoyed the company of friends, including Smith and the historian William Robertson. He wrote the brief memoir My Own Life in 1776, a serene account of his character and pursuits. He died in Edinburgh on 25 August 1776, likely of a disorder of the bowels, under the care of physicians such as William Cullen. James Boswell called on him near the end and later recorded the visit. Adam Smith s letter to William Strahan portrayed Hume facing death with cheerfulness and composure. Hume was interred on Calton Hill, where his modest mausoleum still stands.

Legacy
Hume s writings shaped modern philosophy, history, and social thought. Immanuel Kant famously said that Hume awakened him from his dogmatic slumber, prompting the critical turn in German philosophy. In the British Isles, Hume s empiricism and skepticism stood as a foil for Reid and inspired later developments in utilitarian and economic thought. In the twentieth century, logical empiricists found in his clarity and restraint a model for analyzing knowledge and belief. As an essayist and historian he set a high standard of style; as a philosopher he pressed fundamental questions about reason, causation, self, morals, and religion with unmatched economy and wit. His friendships and disputes, from the salons of Paris to the clubs of Edinburgh, testify to his central place in the cosmopolitan life of the Enlightenment.

Our collection contains 46 quotes who is written by David, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Ethics & Morality - Wisdom - Justice - Friendship.

Other people realated to David: Benjamin Franklin (Politician), Francis Bacon (Philosopher), Jeremy Bentham (Philosopher), George Berkeley (Philosopher), Karl Popper (Philosopher), James Beattie (Poet), Thomas Malthus (Economist)

• 1779 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Book)
• 1757 Four Dissertations (Book)
• 1754 The History of England (Book)
• 1751 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Book)
• 1748 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Book)
• 1739 A Treatise of Human Nature (Book)

• Wikipedia