Poems List

Bear-baiting was esteemed heathenish and unchristian: the sport of it, not the inhumanity, gave offence.

The New Yale Book of Quotations

2

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.

The New Yale Book of Quotations

6

In contriving any system of government, and fixing the several checks and controuls of the constitution, every man ought to be supposed a knave , and to have no other end, in all his actions, than private interest.

The New Yale Book of Quotations

6

We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. 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.

The New Yale Book of Quotations

4

Of all the animals with which this globe is peopled, there is none towards whom nature seems, at first sight, to have exercis’d more cruelty than towards man, in the numberless wants and necessities, with which she has loaded him, and in the slender means, which she affords to the relieving these necessities.

The New Yale Book of Quotations

4
The consequence of a very free commerce between the sexes, and of their living much together, will often terminate in intrigues and gallantry.
5

Poets … though liars by profession, always endeavour to give an air of truth to their fictions.

A Treatise of Human Nature (1738)

4
A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow, real poverty.
5
Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.
5
What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'.
3

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David Hume was born in Edinburgh and showed an early inclination for study and writing. His most famous work, 'A Treatise of Human Nature', published anonymously in 1739-1740, was initially poorly received but later recognized as a landmark in the history of philosophy. Hume also made significant contributions to economics and history, writing a monumental 'History of England'. He was known for his analytical mind and skepticism, questioning causality and induction, and arguing that all knowledge derives from sensory experience. Despite his intellectual contributions, his academic career faced obstacles due to his views considered radical for the time. Hume passed away in Edinburgh in 1776.