The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.

The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious antipathy to the sea; a superstition nearly of the same kind prevails among the Indians; and the Chinese have never excelled in foreign commerce.

The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.

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.

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

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.

The principle which prompts to save is the desire of bettering our conditiona desire which?comes with us from the womb and never leaves us till we go into the grave.