David Hume

Heaven and Hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad; but the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue. -- Were one to go round the world with an intention of giving a good supper to the righteous, and a sound drubbing to the wicked, he would frequently be embarrassed in his choice, and would find that the merits and the demerits of most men and women scarcely amount to the value of either.

All human life must perish, were his principles to prevail. All discourse, all action would immediately cease, and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence.

And what surprize must we feel, when we find him a stupid mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving? Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out; much labour lost, many fruitless trials made; and a slow, but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of world-making.

A certain proof that men ever did, and ever will derive their religion from other sources than this species of reasoning.

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.

Much human thought... is based on “a reasoning that is not in itself different from, nor founded on different principles, from that which appears” in animals.

A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them.

Some exalt our species to the skies, and represent man as a kind of human demigod, who derives his origin from heaven, and retains evident marks of his lineage and descent. Others insist upon the blind sides of human nature, and can discover nothing, except vanity, in which man surpasses the other animals, whom he affects so much to despise.

It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes, in order to be received.

Barbarous nations display this superiority, by reducing their females to the most abject slavery; by confining them, by beating them, by selling them, by killing them.

The life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.

To be a philosophical sceptic is the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian.

The less men think, the more they talk.

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

The greatest 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.

The truth is, all politicians are scoundrels.

There is no such thing as freedom of the will.

The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.

Carelessness and inattention alone can afford us any remedy.