It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.

The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

The learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.

To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.

Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.

Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.