David Hume

Question 1

Where ambition can be so happy as to cover its enterprises even to the person himself under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of all human passions.

Question 2

Among the ancients there was not much delicacy of breeding, or that polite deference and respect which civility obliges us either to express or counterfeit towards the persons with whom we converse.

Question 3

In this sullen apathy neither true wisdom nor true happiness can be found.

Answer 3

apathy
/ˈapəθi/
noun
lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.
behaviour that shows no interest or energy and shows that someone is unwilling to take action, especially over something important:
“widespread apathy among
students”
voter apathy

Question 5

He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances.

Question 6

The greatest parts, without discretion, may be fatal to their owner.

Question 7

When a new government is established, by whatever means, the people are commonly dissatisfied with it.

Question 9

The perusal of a history seems a calm entertainment, but would be no entertainment at all did not our hearts beat with correspondent emotions to those which are described by the historian.

Question 10

Almost every one has a predominant inclination, to which his other desires and affections submit, and which governs him, though perhaps with some intervals, through the whole course of his life.

Question 11

How great soever the variety of municipal laws, it must be confessed that their chief outlines pretty regularly concur; because the purposes to which they tend are everywhere exactly similar.

Question 12

It is his [the legislator’s] best policy to comply with the common bent of mankind, and give it all the improvements of which it is susceptible.

Question 13

Seneca draws a picture of that disorderly luxury which changes day into night, and night into day, and inverts every stated hour of every office of life.

Question 14

I am apt to suspect … that reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral determinations and conclusions.

Question 15

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.

Question 16

The anatomist presents to the eye the most hideous and disagreeable objects, but his science is useful to the painter in delineating even a Venus or a Helen.

Question 17

The most inviolable attachment to the laws of our country is everywhere acknowledged a capital virtue; and where the people are not so happy as to have any legislature but a single person, the strictest loyalty is, in that case, the truest patriotism.

Question 18

In common life, we may observe that the circumstance of utility is always appealed to; nor is it supposed that a greater eulogy can be given to any man than to display his usefulness to the public, and to enumerate the services which he has performed to mankind and to society.

Question 19

Uncommon expressions … are a disfigurement rather than embellishment of discourse.

Question 20

In a vain man, the smallest spark may kindle into the greatest flame, because the materials are always prepared for it.

Question 21

One that has well digested his knowledge, both of books and men, has little enjoyment but in the company of a few select companions. He feels too sensibly how much all the rest of mankind fall short of the notions which he has entertained; and his affections being thus confined within a narrow circle, no wonder he carries them further than if they were more general and undistinguished.

Answer 21

David Hume: Essays.

Question 22

Were we to distinguish the ranks of men by their genius and capacity, more than by their virtue and usefulness to the public, great philosophers would certainly challenge the first rank, and must be placed at the top of mankind. So rare is this character, that perhaps there has not as yet been above two in the world who can lay a just claim to it. At least Galileo and Newton seem to me so far to excel all the rest, that I cannot admit any other into the same place with them.

Answer 22

cont’d:
Great poets may challenge the second place; and this species of genius, though rare, is yet much more frequent than the former. Of the Greek poets that remain, Homer alone seems to merit this character; of the Romans, Virgil, Horace, and Lucretius; of the English, Milton and Pope; Corneille, Racine, Boileau, and Voltaire of the French; Tasso and Ariosto of the Italians.

David Hume: Essays.

Question 23

It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incompatible. When the affections are moved there is no place for the imagination. The mind of man being naturally limited, it is impossible that all its faculties can operate at once; and the more any one predominates, the less room there is for the others to exert their vigour. For this reason a greater degree of simplicity is required in all compositions where men, actions, and passions are painted, than in such as consist of reflections and observations. And as the former species of writing is the more engaging and beautiful, one may safely upon this account give the preference to the extreme of simplicity above that of refinement.

Answer 23

David Hume: Essays.

Question 24

We may also observe that those compositions which we read the oftenest, and which every man of taste has got by heart, have the recommendation of simplicity, and have nothing surprising in the thought when divested of that elegance of expression and harmony of numbers with which it is clothed. If the merit of the composition lie in a point of wit, it may strike at first; but the mind anticipates the thought in the second perusal, and is no longer affected by it. When I read an epigram of Martial, the first line recalls the whole; and I have no pleasure in repeating to myself what I know already. But each line, each word, in Catullus has its merit; and I am never tired with the perusal of him. It is sufficient to run over Cowley once; but Parnell after the fiftieth reading is as fresh as at first

Answer 24

cont’d:
Besides, 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. Terence is a modest and bashful beauty to whom we grant everything because he assumes nothing, and whose purity and nature make a durable though not a violent impression on us.

David Hume: Essays.

Question 25

Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting. They give a certain elegance of sentiment to which the rest of mankind are strangers. The emotions which they excite are soft and tender. They draw off the mind from the hurry of business and interest; cherish reflection; dispose to tranquillity; and produce an agreeable melancholy, which of all dispositions of the mind is best suited to love and friendship.

Answer 25

cont'd: In the second place, a delicacy of taste is favourable to love and friendship, by confining our choice to few people, and making us indifferent to the company and conversation of the greater part of men. David Hume: Essays.

Question 26

The common people, no longer maintained in vicious idleness by their superiors, were obliged to learn some calling or industry, and became useful both to themselves and to others. And it must be acknowledged, in spite of those who declaim so violently against refinement in the arts, or what they are pleased to call luxury, that as much as an industrious tradesman is both a better man and a better citizen than one of those idle retainers who formerly depended on the great families, so much is the life of a modern nobleman more laudable than that of an ancient baron.

Answer 26

David Hume: Hist. of Eng., chap, xxvi., Reign of Henry VIII.

Question 27

Such a superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them merits the pre-eminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.

Answer 27

David Hume: Hist. of Eng.: Reign of James I.

Question 28

Few or no instances occur in history of an equal, peaceful, and durable accommodation that has been concluded between two factions which had been inflamed into civil war. David Hume: History of England, chap. lvii., Reign of Charles I.

Question 29

It is no wonder that faction is so productive of vices of all kinds: for, besides that it inflames all the passions, it tends much to remove those great restraints, honour and shame,—when men find that no iniquity can lose them the applause of their own party, and no innocence secure them against the calumnies of the opposite. David Hume: History of England, chap. lxix.

Question 30

History, being a collection of facts which are multiplying without end, is obliged to adopt arts of abridgment,—to retain the more material events, and to drop all the minute circumstances which are only interesting during the time, or to the persons engaged in the transactions. David Hume: History of England: Henry III.

Question 31

Accurate and just reasoning is the only catholic remedy, fitted for all persons and all dispositions; and is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom.

Question 32

All ills spring from some vice, either in ourselves or others; and even many of our diseases proceed from the same origin. Remove the vices, and the ills follow. You must only take care to remove all the vices. If you remove part, you may render the matter worse. By banishing vicious luxury, without curing sloth and an indifference to others, you only diminish industry in the state, and add nothing to men’s charity or their generosity.

Question 33

All power, even the most despotic, rests ultimately on opinion.

Question 34

All sentiment is sight; because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and is always real wherever a man is conscious of it. But all determinations of the understanding are not right.

Question 35

Among the arts of conversation no one pleases more than mutual deference or civility, which leads us to resign our own inclinations to those of our companions, and to curb and conceal that presumption and arrogance so natural to the human mind.

Question 36

An established government has an infinite advantage by that very circumstance of its being established—the bulk of mankind being governed by authority, not reason, and never attributing authority to anything that has not the recommendation of antiquity.

Question 37

Art may make a suit of clothes; but nature must produce a man.

Question 38

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.

Question 39

Delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion; it enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and our misery.

Question 40

Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains.

Question 41

Every movement of the theater by a skilful poet is communicated, as it were, by magic, to the spectators; who weep, tremble, resent, rejoice, and are inflamed with all the variety of passions which actuate the several personages of the drama.

Question 43

Everything is sold to skill and labor; and where nature furnishes the materials, they are still rude and unfinished, till industry, ever active and intelligent, refines them from their brute state, and fits them for human use and convenience.

Question 44

Fine writing, according to Mr. Addison, consists of sentiments which are natural without being obvious.

Question 45

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.

Question 46

Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains.

Question 47

Happy the man whom indulgent fortune allows to pay to virtue what he owes to nature, and to make a generous gift of what must otherwise be ravished from him by cruel necessity. He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances.

Question 48

If refined sense, and exalted sense, be not so useful as common sense, their rarity, their novelty, and the nobleness of their objects, make some compensation, and render them the admiration of mankind.

Question 49

In a vain man, the smallest spark may kindle into the greatest flame, because the materials are always prepared for it.

Question 50

It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incompatible. When the affections are moved, there is no place for the imagination.

Question 51

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.

Question 52

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.

Question 53

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.

Question 54

It is on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.

Question 55

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.

Question 56

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.

Question 57

Let us consider what we call vicious luxury. No gratification, however sensual, can of itself be esteemed vicious. A gratification is only vicious when it engrosses all a man’s expense, and leaves no ability for such acts of duty and generosity as are required by his situation and fortune. The same care and toil that raise a dish of peas at Christmas would give bread to a whole family during six months.

Question 58

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.

Question 59

Luxury is a word of uncertain signification, and may be taken in a good as in a bad sense.

Question 60

Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

Question 61

Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to be positive or dogmatical on any subject; and even if excessive scepticism could be maintained it would not be more destructive to all just reasoning and inquiry. When men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have there given reins to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities.

Question 62

Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.

Question 63

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.

Question 64

Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting.

Answer 64

tea person's state of mind seen in terms of their being angry or calm. "he rushed out in a very bad temper" a frame of mind; mood or humour TEMPER implies the qualities acquired through experience that determine how a person or group meets difficulties or handles situations. a resilient temper

Question 65

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

Question 66

Praise never gives us much pleasure unless it concur with our own opinion, and extol us for those qualities in which we chiefly excel.

Question 67

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.

Question 68

Self-denial is a monkish virtue.

Question 69

Such is the nature of novelty that where anything pleases, it becomes doubly agreeable if new; but if it displeases, it is doubly displeasing upon that very account.

Question 70

The ages of greatest public spirit are not always eminent for private virtue.

Question 71

That the corruption of the best thing produces the worst, is grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among other instances, by the pernicious effects of superstition and enthusiasm, the corruptions of true religion.

Question 72

The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness.

Question 73

The greater part of mankind may be divided into two classes; that of shallow thinkers who fall short of the truth; and that of abstruse thinkers who go beyond it.

Question 74

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.

Question 75

“The sublime,” says Longinus, “is often nothing but the echo or image of magnanimity”; and where this quality appears in any one, even though a syllable be not uttered, it excites our applause and admiration.

Question 76

The sweetest and most inoffensive path of life leads through the avenues of science and learning; and whoever can either remove any obstruction in this way, or open up any new prospect, ought so far, to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.

Question 77

There is a set of harmless liars, frequently to be met with in company, who deal much in the marvellous. Their usual intention is to please and entertain; but as men are most delighted with what they conceive to be the truth, these people mistake the means of pleasing, and incur universal blame.

Question 78

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.

Question 79

To be happy, the passions must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy. A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow, real poverty.

Question 80

Vanity is so closely allied to virtue, and to love the fame of laudable actions approaches so near the love of laudable actions for their own sake, that these passions are more capable of mixture than any other kinds of affection; and it is almost impossible to have the latter without some degree of the former.

Question 81

When men are most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have then given views to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities.

Question 82

When we reflect on the shortness and uncertainty of life, how despicable seem all our pursuits of happiness.

Question 83

Where ambition can be so happy as to cover its enterprises even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of all human passions.

Question 84

Where is the reward of virtue? and what recompense has nature provided for such important sacrifices as those of life and fortune, which we must often make to it? O sons of earth! Are ye ignorant of the value of this celestial mistress? And do ye meanly inquire for her portion, when ye observe her genuine beauty?

Question 85

While we are reasoning concerning life, life is gone.