“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.”

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.

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

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.

An English university is a sanctuary in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices find shelter and protection after they have been . Hunted out of every corner of the world.

To feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature.

A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.

Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.