Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.
~ David Hume
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.
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.
The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.
The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.
Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
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 purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.
Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.
Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived.
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.
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.
Men often act knowingly against their interest.
This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.
