 It is with books as with women, where a certain plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging than that glare of paint and airs and apparel which may dazzle the eye, but reaches not the affections.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
Category Archives: David Hume
David Hume – The end result of human industry
| The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
David Hume – Uncommon expressions in discourse
| Uncommon expressions are a disfigurement rather than an embellishment of discourse.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
David Hume – In this sullen apathy
| In this sullen apathy neither true wisdom nor true happiness can be found.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
David Hume – Friendship is a calm and sedate affection
| Friendship is a calm and sedate affection, conducted by reason and cemented by habit; springing from long acquaintance and mutual obligations, without jealousies or fears, and without those feverish fits of heat and cold, which cause such an agreeable torment in the amorous passion.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
David Hume – The limited influence of curiosity
| Curiosity, or the love of knowledge, has a very limited influence, and requires youth, leisure, education, genius and example to make it govern any person.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
David Hume – When I shall be dead. . .
| When I shall be dead, the principles of which I am composed will still perform their part in the universe, and will be equally useful in the grand fabric, as when they composed this individual creature. The difference to the whole will be no greater betwixt my being in a chamber and in the open air. The one change is of more importance to me than the other; but not more so to the universe.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
David Hume – Love in full force requires some jealousy
| Jealousy is a painful passion; yet without some share of it, the agreeable affection of love has difficulty to subsist in its full force and violence.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
David Hume – First appearances are deceitul in politics
| Of all sciences there is none where first appearances are more deceitful than in politics.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
David Hume – Beauty and value of nature’s productions
| It is a great mortification to the vanity of man that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of Nature’s productions, either for beauty or value. Art is only the underworkman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment to those pieces which come from the hand of the master.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
David Hume – Soften and humanize the temper
| It is certain that a serious attention to the sciences and liberal arts softens and humanizes the temper, and cherishes those fine emotions in which true virtue and honor consist. It rarely, very rarely happens that a man of taste and learning is not, at least, an honest man, whatever frailties may attend him.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
David Hume – Distinguishing men of delicate taste
| Though men of delicate taste be rare, they are easily to be distinguished in society by the soundness of their understanding, and the superiority of their faculties above the rest of mankind.
– David Hume (1711-1776) |
