“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; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.”

— David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, Part I, Essay 4: Of The First Principles of Government

About David Hume

1711 – 1776

Scottish philosopher and historian.

“Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination.”

“Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular.”

“Reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals.”

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.”

“Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.”

“The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations.”

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.”

“I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research.”

“There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them.”