Nothing is pure and entire of a piece. All advantages are attended with disadvantages. A universal compensation prevails in all conditions of being and existence.

— David Hume

Of all sciences there is none, where first appearances are more deceitful than in politics.

— David Hume

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.

— David Hume

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.

— David Hume

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.…'This not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

— David Hume

Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.

— David Hume

Should a traveler, returning from a far country, bring us an account of men wholly different from any with whom we were ever acquainted, men who were entirely divested of avarice, ambition, or revenge, who knew no pleasure but friendship, generosity, and public spirit, we should immediately, from these circumstances, detect the falsehood and prove him a liar with the same certainty as if he had stuffed his narration with stories of centaurs and dragons, miracles and prodigies.

— David Hume

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.

— David Hume

The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.

— David Hume

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.

— David Hume