David Hume

There is nothing in the mind of man that is not first in the senses, or in the operations of the mind itself.

The rules of morality are not the conclusions of our reason.

Liberty, according to the most common acceptation of the word, means a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will.

The passion of vanity is rather a proof of a little mind, than of a great one.

A man who has no sense of the ridiculous is a dangerous companion.

The error is not in the senses, but in the understanding.

It is impossible for us to think of any thing, which we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or internal senses.

The only method of freeing us from these abstruse questions, is to enquire seriously into the nature of human understanding, and show, from an exact analysis of its powers and capacities, that it is by no means fitted for such remote and abstruse subjects.

The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind is of little use to us, if it do not enable us to correct our errors, and regulate our passions.

Truth is disputable; not taste: what exists in the nature of things is the standard of our judgement; what has a reference to sentiment or feeling, can have no other standard than the sentiment or feeling itself.

The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies.

The general opinion of mankind is, that there is a great difference between a man and a stone.

The most perfect politician, who has ever existed, is he who has been able to unite the most opposite qualities, and to reconcile the most contradictory interests.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

The great subverter of the universe, and of all systems of theology and moral philosophy, is the principle of ANARCHY.

Men's views of things are very much perverted by their passions.

The existence of matter of fact is not capable of demonstration.

The imagination is a great source of error.

The general rule is, that all objects, which are continguous in time and place, and betwixt which there is an original resemblance, are conceived as united by the imagination.

The passion of love is a very odd compound.