When we reflect on the shortness and uncertainty of life, how despicable seem all our pursuits of happiness. — David Hume Copy Share Image
Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients: action, pleasure and indolence. — David Hume Copy Share Image
There is an inconvenience which attends all abstruse reasoning. that it may silence, without convincing an antagonist, and requires the same intense… — David Hume Copy Share Image
But, historians, and even common sense, may inform us, that, however specious these ideas of perfect equality may seem, they are really,… — David Hume Copy Share Image
.. that a rule, which, in speculation, may seem the most advantageous to society, may yet be found, in practice, totally pernicious… — David Hume Copy Share Image
But would we know, whether the pretended prophet had really attained a just sentiment of morals? Let us attend to his narration;… — David Hume Copy Share Image
But there still prevails, even in nations well acquainted with commerce, a strong jealousy with regard to the balance of trade, and… — David Hume Copy Share Image
It seems then, say I, that you leave politics entirely out of the question, and never suppose, that a wise magistrate can… — David Hume Copy Share Image
All the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and...however wide any of them may seem to run from… — David Hume Copy Share Image
It seems certain, that though a man, in a flush of humour, after intense reflection on the many contradictions and imperfections of… — David Hume Copy Share Image
Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients; action, pleasure and indolence. And though these ingredients ought to be mixed in different… — David Hume Copy Share Image
And as this is the obvious appearance of things, it must be admitted, till some hypothesis be discovered, which by penetrating deeper… — David Hume Copy Share Image
I say then, that belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the… — David Hume Copy Share Image
It seems to me, that the only Objects of the abstract Sciences or of Demonstration is Quantity and Number, and that all… — David Hume Copy Share Image
The best taxes are such as are levied upon consumptions, especially those of luxury; because such taxes are least felt by the… — David Hume Copy Share Image
.. the voice of nature and experience seems plainly to oppose the selfish theory. — David Hume Copy Share Image
Of all the animals with which this globe is peopled, there is none towards whom nature seems, at first sight, to have… — David Hume Copy Share Image
“It is impossible for us to think of any thing, which we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or internal senses.” — David Hume Copy Share Image
All morality depends upon our sentiments; and when any action or quality of the mind pleases us after a certain manner we say it… — David Hume Copy Share Image
And indeed nothing but the most determined scepticism, along with a great degree of indolence, can justify this aversion to metaphysics. For if truth… — David Hume Copy Share Image
...virtue is attended by more peace of mind than vice, and meets with a more favourable reception from the world. I am sensible, that,… — David Hume Copy Share Image
That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will… — David Hume Copy Share Image
We may conclude, therefore, that, in order to establish laws for the regulation of property, we must be acquainted with the nature and situation… — David Hume Copy Share Image
The observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours… — David Hume Copy Share Image
The religious hypothesis, therefore, must be considered only as a particular method of accounting for the visible phenomena of the universe: but no just… — David Hume Copy Share Image
Manufacturers...gradually shift their places, leaving those countries and provinces which they have already enriched, and flying to others, whether they are allured by the… — David Hume Copy Share Image
We may observe that, in displaying the praises of any humane, beneficent man, there is one circumstance which never fails to be amply insisted… — David Hume Copy Share Image
“The most perfect happiness, surely, must arise from the contemplation of the most perfect object.” — David Hume Copy Share Image
