Zitat des Tages von David Hume:
No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.
Custom is the great guide to human life.
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.
A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.
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.
Men often act knowingly against their interest.
What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'.
Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.
And what is the greatest number? Number one.
A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
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.
It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.
The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.
Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.
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.
The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.
Avarice, the spur of industry.
Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.
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.
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.
The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue.
To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive.
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.
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.
No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed.
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.
Men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions.
Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.
Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.
Human Nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.
Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.
It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.
Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.