David Hume Quotes About Liberty

Quotes about: Liberty

• It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes, in order to be received.

  David Hume

  Men, Order, Liberty

  David Hume, Stuart D. Warner, Donald W. Livingston (1994). “Hume: Political Writings”, p.253, Hackett Publishing

• Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.

  David Hume

  Liberty, Kind, Lost

• In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies of liberty.

  David Hume

  Enemy, Age, Liberty

  'Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary' (ed. T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, 1875) 'Of the Parties of Great Britain' (1741-2)

• Superstition is an enemy to civil liberty.

  David Hume

  Enemy, Religion, Atheism

  David Hume (1862). “Essays moral, political, and literary. (Life of the author, etc.).”, p.48

• But to proceed in this reconciling project with regard to the question of liberty and necessity; the most contentious question of metaphysics, the most contentious science.

  David Hume

  Liberty, Free Will, Projects

  David Hume (2012). “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p.60, Courier Corporation

• Luxury, or a refinement on the pleasures and conveniences of life, had long been supposed the source of every corruption in government, and the immediate cause of faction, sedition, civil wars, and the total loss of liberty. It was, therefore, universally regarded as a vice, and was an object of declamation to all satyrists, and severe moralists.

  David Hume

  War, Loss, Luxury

  David Hume (1751). “An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals”, p.30

• Liberty is a blessing so inestimable, that, wherever there appears any probability of recovering it, a nation may willingly run many hazards, and ought not even to repine at the greatest effusion of blood or dissipation of treasure.

  David Hume

  Running, Blessing, Blood

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.874, Delphi Classics

• In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies to liberty; and it is certain, that this steady conduct of theirs must have been founded on fixed reasons of interest and ambition. Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds, on which it is commonly founded; and, by an infallible connexion, which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed, at least has never yet been enjoyed, but in a free government.

  David Hume

  Ambition, Thinking, Government

  David Hume (2016). “Essays Moral, Political, Literary: Revision of Great Book”, p.50, VM eBooks

• Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds on which it is commonly founded.

  David Hume

  Thinking, Liberty, Fraud

  David Hume, Stephen Copley, Andrew Edgar (2008). “Selected Essays”, p.33, Oxford University Press

• Municipal laws are a supply to the wisdom of each individual; and, at the same time, by restraining the natural liberty of men, make private interest submit to the interest of the public.

  David Hume

  Wisdom, Men, Law

  David Hume (1825). “Essays and treatises on several subjects: essays, moral, political and literary”, p.180

• Enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of liberty; as superstition,on the contrary, renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery.

  David Hume

  Men, Liberty, Ambitious

  David Hume (1875). “Essays Moral, Political, and Literary”, p.149

• Learning has been as great a Loser by being shut up in Colleges and Cells, and secluded from the World and good Company. By that Means, every Thing of what we call Belles Lettres became totally barbarous, being cultivated by Men without any Taste of Life or Manners, and without that Liberty and Facility of Thought and Expression, which can only be acquir'd by Conversation.

  David Hume

  Mean, Learning, College

  David Hume (1875). “Essays Moral, Political, and Literary”, p.368

• A Tory..., since the revolution, may be defined in a few words, to be a lover of monarchy, though without abandoning liberty; anda partizan of the family of Stuart. As a Whig may be defined to be a lover of liberty though without renouncing monarchy; and a friend to the settlement in the protestant line.

  David Hume

  Liberty, Revolution, Few Words

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