David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, economist and historian. He is considered one of the most important figures in the western filosofis history and the Scottish Enlightenment. Although in recent years interest in Hume's work is centered around his philosophical works, it was as a historian that he first became famous. His work History of Great Britain was the standard work for the English history in sixty to seventy years until the release of the History of England by TB Macaulay. He laid the foundation for Darwin's evolutionary theory with his idea of man as a very advanced animals, in contrast to the until then dominating conception of man in God's image.
Historians look mainly at the humeanske philosophy as a form of deep skepticism, but others argue that naturalism is an equally important part of his thoughts. Hume's followers have tended to oscillate from those who emphasize the skeptical element, such as the logical positivists, and those who emphasize the naturalistic elements, such as Don Garrett, Norman Kemp Smith, Kerri Skinner, Barry Stroud, and Galen Strawson.
Hume was heavily influenced by empirical tests, John Locke and George Berkeley, along with several French-language writers such as Pierre Bayle, and several figures in the English-speaking intellectual landscape such as Isaac Newton, Samuel Clarke, Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith and Joseph Butler.
Our collection contains 46 quotes who is written / told by David, under the main topics: Men - Beauty.
"It's when we start working together that the real healing takes place... it's when we start spilling our sweat, and not our blood"
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once"
"Everything in the world is purchased by labor"
"Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding"
"Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals"
"Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived"
"The chief benefit, which results from philosophy, arises in an indirect manner, and proceeds more from its secret, insensible influence, than from its immediate application"
"It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom"
"Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man"
"Accuracy is, in every case, advantageous to beauty, and just reasoning to delicate sentiment. In vain would we exalt the one by depreciating the other"
"Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them"
"The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny"
"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"
"A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century"
"To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive"
"The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster"
"The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst"
"That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise"
"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them"
"It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger"
"Avarice, the spur of industry"
"The law always limits every power it gives"
"Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence"
"Men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions"
"It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave"
"He is happy whom circumstances suit his temper; but he Is more excellent who suits his temper to any circumstance"
"A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker"
"This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society"
"There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it"
"I have written on all sorts of subjects... yet I have no enemies; except indeed all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians"
"Human Nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected"
"Every wise, just, and mild government, by rendering the condition of its subjects easy and secure, will always abound most in people, as well as in commodities and riches"
"The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason"
"The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one"
"Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge"
"Beauty is no quality in things themselves. It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them"
"Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity"
"And what is the greatest number? Number one"
"To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian"
"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"
"Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous"
"Custom is the great guide to human life"
"Belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain"
"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence"
"A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty"
