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.

Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attornies, at least, must always be paid by the parties; and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they actually perform it.

The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire; for it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his good always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little interest of this kind.

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.

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.

The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating.

Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.