Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
I have no faith in political arithmetic.
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
Labour was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.
What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.
All money is a matter of belief.
The division of labour was limited by the extent of the market.
A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, unites in his own person the three different characters, of landlord, farmer, and labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the first, the profit of the second, and the wages of the third.
It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.
A true party-man hates and despises candour.
All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.
We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves.
In this consists the difference between the character of a miser and that of a person of exact economy and assiduity. The one is anxious about small matters for their own sake; the other attends to them only in consequence of the scheme of life which he has laid down to himself.
That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.
It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.
It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.
Avarice and injustice are always shortsighted, and they did not foresee how much this regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt in the long-run the real interest of the landlord.
But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about.