If the religious spirit be ever mentioned in any historical narration, we are sure to meet afterwards with a detail of the miseries which attend it. And no period of time can be happier or more prosperous, than those in which it is never regarded or heard of.
David HumeThere is, indeed a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are corrected by common sense and reflection.
David HumeDelicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion; it enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and our misery.
David HumeJealousy 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.
David HumeVanity 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.
David Hume