Education makes a man a more intelligent shoemaker, if that be his occupation, but not by teaching him how to make shoes; it does so by the mental exercise it gives, and the habits it impresses.
The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear from thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.
Each undervalues that part of the materials of thought with which he is not familiar.
What is contrary to women’s nature to do, they never will be made to do by simply giving their nature free play.
The sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.
When the land is cultivated entirely by the spade and no horses are kept, a cow is kept for every three acres of land.
The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.
They who know how to employ opportunities will often find that they can create them; and what we can achieve depends less on the amount of time we possess than on the use we make of our time.
Laws and systems of polity always begin by recognizing the relations they find already existing between individuals.
The price paid for intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind.
There is a tolerably general agreement about what a university is not. It is not a place of professional education.
Since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinion that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
Trade is a social act.
Any participation, even in the smallest public function, is useful.
My father taught me that the question Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God?
All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people.
Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments.
A man of clear ideas errs grievously if he imagines that whatever is seen confusedly does not exist; it belongs to him, when he meets with such a thing, to dispel the midst, and fix the outlines of the vague form which is looming through it.
Language is the light of the mind.
Strong impulses are but another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad uses; but more good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent and impassive one.