Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.

Defense is superior to opulence.

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

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.

A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the same effect as a secret in trade or manufactures. The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked, by never fully supplying the effectual demand, sell their commodities much above the natural price, and raise their emoluments, whether they consist in wages or profit, greatly above their natural rate.

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.