116 quotes
The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the pleasure and use of man, produces, to its slothful owner, the most abundant crop of poisons.
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)
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.
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739)
People who invented the word charity, and used it in a good sense, inculcated more clearly, and much more efficaciously, the precept, Be charitable, than any pretended legislator or prophet, who should insert such a maxim in his writings.
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)
Courage, of all national qualities, is the most precarious; because it is exerted only at intervals, and by a few in every nation; whereas industry, knowledge, civility, may be of constant and universal use, and for several ages, may become habitual to the whole people.
All the goods of life united would not make a very happy man; but all the ills united would make a wretch indeed; and any one of them almost (and who can be free from every one?) nay often the absence of one good (and who can possess all?) is sufficient to render life ineligible.
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)
The conclusion [of the essay 'Of the Protestant Succession'] shows me a Whig, but a very sceptical one.
What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian, according to the experience, what we have had of mankind?
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
Though experience be our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact; it must be acknowledged, that this guide is not altogether infallible, but in some cases is apt to lead us into errors.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
Avarice, the spur of industry, is so obstinate a passion, and works its way through so many real dangers and difficulties, that it is not likely to be scared by an imaginary danger, which is so small, that it scarcely admits of calculation.
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)
Among well-bred people a mutual deference is affected, contempt for others is disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation maintained without vehemence, without interruption, without eagerness.
Nature must have provided some other principle, of more ready, and more general use and application; nor can an operation of such immense consequence in life, as that of inferring effects from causes, be trusted to the uncertain process of reasoning and argumentation.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
It is natural for us to seek a Standard of Taste; a rule, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision, afforded, confirming one sentiment, and condemning another.
Four Dissertations (1757)
Nothing is more usual and more natural for those, who pretend to discover anything new to the world in philosophy and the sciences, than to insinuate the praises of their own systems, by decrying all those, which have been advanced before them.
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739)
... 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.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
The experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
Nature has pointed out a mixed kind of life as most suitable to the human race, and secretly admonished them to allow none of these biases to draw too much, so as to incapacitate them for other occupations and entertainments.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
Necessity may be defined in two ways, conformably to the two definitions of cause, of which it makes an essential part. It consists either in the constant conjunction of like objects, or in the inference of the understating from one object to another.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
I say, then, that 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
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny ; flattery to treachery ; standing armies to arbitrary government ; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741)
How is the deity disfigured in our representations of him! What caprice, absurdity, and immorality are attributed to him! How much is he degraded even below the character, which we should naturally, in common life, ascribe to a man of sense and virtue!
The Natural History of Religion (1757)