David Hume Quotes About Age
-
Riches are valuable at all times, and to all men, because they always purchase pleasures such as men are accustomed to and desire; nor can anything restrain or regulate the love of money but a sense of honor and virtue, which, if it be not nearly equal at all times, will naturally abound most in ages of knowledge and refinement.
→ -
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.
→ -
The ages of greatest public spirit are not always eminent for private virtue.
→ -
The Crusades - the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation.
→ -
In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies of liberty.
→ -
But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country.
→ -
For, besides, that many persons find too sensible an interest in perpetually recalling such topics; besides this, I say, the motive of blind despair can never reasonably have place in the sciences; since, however unsuccessful former attempts may have proved, there is still room to hope, that the industry, good fortune, or improved sagacity of succeeding generations may reach discoveries unknown to former ages.
→ -
A pleasant comedy, which paints the manners of the age, and exposes a faithful picture of nature, is a durable work, and is transmitted to the latest posterity. But a system, whether physical or metaphysical, commonly owes its success to its novelty; and is no sooner canvassed with impartiality than its weakness is discovered.
→ -
In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies to liberty; and it is certain, that this steady conduct of theirs must have been founded on fixed reasons of interest and ambition. Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds, on which it is commonly founded; and, by an infallible connexion, which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed, at least has never yet been enjoyed, but in a free government.
→ -
It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause; for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age. But to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing
→ -
The many instances of forged miracles, and prophecies, and supernatural events, which, in all ages, have either been detected by contrary evidence, or which detect themselves by their absurdity, prove sufficiently the strong propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and marvellous, and ought reasonably to begat a suspicion against all relations of this kind.
→
Related Authors
-
Thomas Hobbes Philosopher -
Adam Smith Philosopher -
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Philosopher -
Friedrich Nietzsche Philologist -
Voltaire Writer -
Pierre Bayle Philosopher -
Immanuel Kant Philosopher -
John Stuart Mill Philosopher -
Baron de Montesquieu Author -
Baruch Spinoza Philosopher -
Karl Popper Philosopher -
Karl Marx Philosopher -
Gottfried Leibniz Mathematician -
Thomas Aquinas Priest -
Rene Descartes Philosopher -
Francis Bacon Former Lord Chancellor -
John Locke Philosopher -
George Berkeley Philosopher -
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Philosopher -
Aristotle Philosopher