“What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.”

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.

Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attornies, at least, must always be paid by the parties; and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they actually perform it.

Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.

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.

It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.

Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.

The rate of profit is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.

Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.

The learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.

Wonder and not any expectation of advantage from its discoveries, is the first principle which prompts mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature.

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.

Ask any rich man of common prudence to which of the two sorts of people he has lent the greater part of his stock, to those who, he thinks, will employ it profitably, or to those who will spend it idly, and he will laugh at you for proposing the question.

The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.

Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness.

Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State.