Date: 1754, 1762

"The two ruling passions of this parliament, were zeal for liberty, and an aversion to the church; and to both of these, nothing could appear more exceptionable, than the court of high commission, whose institution rendered it entirely arbitrary, and assigned to it the defence of the ecclesiastic...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1754, 1762

"The licence, which the parliament had bestowed on this spirit, by checking ecclesiastical authority; the countenance and encouragement, with which they had honoured it; had already diffused its influence to a wonderful degree: And all orders of men had drunk deep of the intoxicating poison."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1756

"I hardly believe there is in any language a metaphor more appositely applied, or more elegantly expressed, than this of the effects of the warmth of fancy."

— Warton, Joseph (bap. 1722, d. 1800)

Date: 1757, 1777

"However we may be hurried away by the spectacle; whatever dominion the senses and imagination may usurp over the reason, there still lurks at the bottom a certain idea of falsehood in the whole of what we see"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757, 1777

"But TERENCE and VIRGIL maintain an universal, undisputed empire over the minds of men."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757

"This in the mean time is obvious, that the empire of all religious faith over the understanding is wavering and uncertain, subject to every variety of humour, and dependent on the present incidents, which strike the imagination."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757

"The universal propensity to believe in invisible, intelligent power, if not an original instinct, being at least a general attendant of human nature, may be considered as a kind of mark or stamp, which the divine workman has set upon his work."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757

"Since, therefore, the mind of man appears of so loose and unsteddy a contexture, that, even at present, when so many persons find an interest in continually employing on it the chissel and the hammer, yet are they not able to engrave theological tenets with any lasting impression; how much more ...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757

"During such calm sunshine of the mind, these spectres of false divinity never make their appearance."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1757

"Their root strikes deeper into the mind, and springs from the essential and universal properties of human nature."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)