The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.

The interest of [businessmen] is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ... ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined ... with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men ... who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public.

Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor.

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

In public, as well as in private expences, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly.

That a joint stock company should be able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private adventurers can come into any sort of open and fair competition with them, seems contrary to all experience.

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