All money is a matter of belief.
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.
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.
I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this no dog exchanges bones with another.
Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?
With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.
To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
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.
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation.
This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.
