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

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.

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.

But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced, but in so cold a soil, and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies.

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. But in the mercantile system the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all industry and commerce.

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.