Date: January 1739

"Are not these as plain proofs, that the passions of fear and hope are mixtures of grief and joy, as in optics it is a proof, that a coloured ray of the sun passing through a prism, is a composition of two others, when, as you diminish or encrease the quantity of either, you find it prevail propo...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"I shall observe that there cannot be two passions more nearly resembling each other than those of hunting and philosophy, whatever disproportion may at first sight appear betwixt them"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

Personal identity may be like a "a noise, that is frequently interrupted and renew'd ... tho' 'tis evident the sounds have only a specific identity or resemblance, and there is nothing numerically the same, but the cause which produc'd them."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

Personal identity may be like a church, "which was formerly of brick, fell to ruin, and that the parish rebuilt the same church of free-stone, and according to modern architecture."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

Personal identity may be like a river which is totally alter'd "in less than four and twenty hours."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"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."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"Let us chace our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions which have appeared in that narrow compass."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"The Duc de la Rochefoucault has very well observed, that absence destroys weak passions, but encreases strong; as the wind extinguishes a candle, but blows up a fire"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: September 17, 1739

"There are different ways of examining the Mind as well as the Body. One may consider it either as an Anatomist or as a Painter; either to discover its most secret Springs & Principles or to describe the Grace & Beauty of its Actions."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"Her enemy, therefore, is obliged to take shelter under her protection, and by making use of rational arguments to prove the fallaciousness and imbecility of reason, produces, in a manner, a patent under her hand and seal."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)