Quotations From DAVID HUME

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• 1.

  This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.

  David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher, historian, embassy secretary. A Treatise of Human Nature, pp. 491-492, ed. Selby-Bigge (1740).
  
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• 2.

  This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.

  David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher, historian, embassy secretary. A Treatise of Human Nature, pp. 491-492, ed. Selby-Bigge (1740).
  
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• 3.

  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.

  David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher, historian. A Treatise of Human Nature, bk. II, part III, s. III, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford (1951).
• 4.

  To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive.

  David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher. A Treatise of Human Nature, bk. 1, part 2, sect. 6, p. 67, ed. P. Nidditch, 2nd edition, New York, Oxford University Press (1978).
  
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• 5.

  That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.

  David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher. Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, sect. 4 ("Sceptical Doubts Concerning the Operations of the Understanding"), part 1, p. 25, ed. L. Selby-Bigge, M.A., London, Oxford University Press (1902). From "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding."
  
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• 6.

  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.

  David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher. Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, sect. 1 ("Of the Different Species of Philosophy"), p. 10, ed. L. Selby-Bigge, M.A., 2nd edition, London, Oxford University Press (1902). From "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding."
  
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• 7.

  Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots.

  David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher. "My Own Life," p. 2, Green and Grose (1898).
  
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• 8.

  There is only one vice, which may be found in life with as strong features, and as high a colouring as needs be employed by any satyrist or comic poet; and that is AVARICE.

  David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher. "Of Avarice," Essays Withdrawn, Essay VII, p. 570, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller, revised edition, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, Inc. (1987).
  
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• 9.

  Avarice, the spur of industry.

  David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher, historian. "Of Civil Liberty," Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (1742).
• 10.

  Men often act knowingly against their interest.

  David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher. "A Dissertation on the Passions," sect. 5, p. 162, Green and Grose (1898).