“The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.”

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.

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.

It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.

In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.

But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage -it rots in the chrysalis, it never will have wings.It is anti-creation, like monkeys and baboons.

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

I’d like to be remembered as someone who really helped people to have a little humility and realize that we are part of the animal kingdom, not separated from it.

I smell a rat.

And besides, look at elder flowers and bluebells-they are a sign that pure creation takes place – even the butterfly.

The least I can do is speak out for the hundreds of chimpanzees who, right now, sit hunched, miserable and without hope, staring out with dead eyes from their metal prisons. They cannot speak for themselves.

Sometimes I [longed to be a chimp] I just wanted to know. what it felt like in the evening to be making a nest and what it felt like to be a female when a big male comes thundering in.

You can’t put feathers on a dog and call it a chicken!