“To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors.”

Stupidity is much the same all the world over.

Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.

When one’s ideas are not challenged, one’s ability to defend them weakens.

In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.

A person should be free to do as he likes in his own concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for another, under the pretext that the affairs of the other are his own affairs.

It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.

A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination.

The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.

The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.

Some of my colleagues seem more interested in using every procedural method possible to keep the Senate from doing anything than they are in creating jobs or helping Americans struggling in a difficult economy.

The fact is that the economy is really posed for the kind of recovery that people can see and understand.

An economy that we need that works for everyone. Where everyone works, everyone counts and everyone contributes.

Today, we jump into this globalization of the economy and the internet age.

I think this is a moment of a lot of possibilities, and openings. Occupy and the 99% movement are really going to break through, and we are going to create a new economy.

They are simply not capable of promoting the indigenous economy. Many billions of dollars flooded into Afghanistan, but without any significant effect.

To handle the economy and services in a country like Iraq requires delegation of authority and the choice of competent people.

What is doing the damage is the fact that the U.K. is pulling in more imports, which shows the continued strength of the economy and the strength of sterling.