“Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.”

There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.

The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.

It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense. They are themselves, always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.

An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.

Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.

It must always be remembered, however, that it is the luxuries, and not the necessary expense of the inferior ranks of people, that ought ever to be taxed.

Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.

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 price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.

It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.

All money is a matter of belief.

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.

Defense is superior to opulence.

Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.

Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.

From a very young age I had an ambition to be a musician, and to do that professionally. That’s what I pursued until I was about 20, playing in bands that were taken pretty seriously at that stage.

The average Hollywood film star’s ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

Here’s the difficulty about suicide: it is an act of ambition that can be committed only when one has passed beyond ambition.

The best job a man could have would be a chef. They’d understand the long hours I work and the drive and ambition it takes to succeed.

My ambition is to have this wonderful gift produce practical results for the future of commercial flying and for the women who may want to fly tomorrow’s planes.

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

I love playing a smart, ambitious, talented woman. Who doesn’t? That’s really fun for me.