"...there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure,
grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never
all exist at the same time. It cannot, therefore, be from any of these
impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is deriv'd; and
consequently there is no such idea."

"The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively
make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an
infinite variety of postures and situations. There is properly no
simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different..."

 -David Hume (1711-1776), A Treatise of Human Nature (1739)


"'TIS a kind of blasphemy to imagine that any created being can
disturb the order of the world, or invade the business of Providence!"

"A man may disturb society no doubt, and thereby incur the displeasure
of the Almighty: But the government of the world is placed far beyond
his reach and violence."

"A MAN who retires from life does no harm to society: He only ceases
to do good; which, if it is an injury, is of the lowest kind. -- All
our obligations to do good to society seem to imply something
reciprocal. I receive the benefits of society, and therefore ought to
promote its interests; but when I withdraw myself altogether from
society, can I be bound any longer?"

 -David Hume (1711-1776), Essays on Suicide and the 
  Immortality of the Soul (1783)