To hinder, besides, the farmer from selling his goods at all times to the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary laws of justice to an idea of public utility, to a sort of reasons of state; an act of legislative authority which ought to be exercised only, which can be pardoned only in cases of the most urgent necessity.

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.

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.

Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions.

The importation of gold and silver is not the principal, much less the sole benefit which a nation derives from its foreign trade.

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

A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, unites in his own person the three different characters, of landlord, farmer, and labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the first, the profit of the second, and the wages of the third.