The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.

In ease of body, peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.

But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.

Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with with those of the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that the greatest of all improvements.

Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.

By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound