If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

In contriving any system of government, and fixing the several checks and controuls of the constitution, every man ought to be supposed a knave , and to have no other end, in all his actions, than private interest.

It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

Money … is none of the wheels of trade: it is the oil which renders the motion of the wheels more smooth and easy.

Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the press.

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.