Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both, that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow.
David HumeRead
The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques how popularity and patriotism can lead to power abuses and tyranny.
David Hume's quote reflects on the paradoxical relationship between popularity, patriotism, and the rise of oppressive power structures. He suggests that the paths leading to power—often paved with public sentiment and flattery—can also result in treachery and arbitrary governance, emphasizing the dangers of unchecked authority and the manipulation of public goodwill for selfish ends, including the exploitation of religious sentiment by those in power.
Themes
PopularityPatriotismPowerTyrannyAuthorityGovernment
In practice
Example use cases
In a political debate to highlight the risks of populism.
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All quotes →Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding.
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All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.
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There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it.
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To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.
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