“It’s the most righteous, which of course is not the same thing as the most profitable.”

The experience of ages has shown that a man who works on the land is purer, nobler, higher, and more moral… Agriculture should be at the basis of everything. That’s my idea.

For contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation.

Nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book.

There are certain words which are nearer and dearer to a man than any others.

Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you’ll be left without bread and without views.

Everything resembles the truth, everything can happen to a man.

But youth has a future. The closer he came to graduation, the more his heart beat. He said to himself: “This is still not life, this is only the preparation for life.

But wise is the man who disdains no character, but with searching glance explores him to the root and cause of all.

In the end dreams became his life, and his whole life thereafter took a strange turn: one might say he slept while waking and watched while asleep.

They don’t listen to me, they don’t hear me, they don’t see me.

How much savage coarseness is concealed in refined, cultivated manners.

Two turtle doves will show thee Where my cold ashes lie And sadly murmuring tell thee How in tears I did die.

For public opinion does not admit that lofty rapturous laughter is worthy to stand beside lofty lyrical emotion and that there isall the difference in the world between it and the antics of a clown at a fair.

We ought to thank God for that. Yes, the man who tills the land is more worthy of respect than any.

Steeds, steeds, what steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes?

Don’t blame the mirror if your face is faulty.

But a tax on luxuries would no other effect than to raise their price. It would fall wholly on the consumer, and could neither increase wages nor lower profits.

Whenever, then, the usual and ordinary rate of the profits of agricultural stock, and all the outgoings belonging to the cultivation of land, are together equal to the value of the whole produce, there can be no rent.

The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.

Your workers don’t want to be paid less, so to maintain profits, you increase your prices. That’s inflation.

I don’t want to do business with those who don’t make a profit, because they can’t give the best service.

When I didn’t collect, the balance came out of my profit. My average income was six dollars a week.

Profit in business comes from repeat customers.

A tremendous amount of the entrepreneurial initiative, if you want to call it that, comes from the dynamic state sector on which most of the economy relies to socialize costs and risks and privatize eventual profit. And that’s achieved by, if you like, advertising.