A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it's people.

Are you in earnest resolved never to barter your liberty for the lordly servitude of a court, but to live free, fearless, and independent? There seems to be one way to continue in that virtuous resolution; and perhaps but one. Never enter the place from whence so few have been able to return; never come within the circle of ambition; nor ever bring yourself into comparison with those masters of the earth who have already engrossed the attention of half mankind before you.

In general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labour, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition, it will always be the more so.

Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.

A true party-man hates and despises candour.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

The retinue of a grandee in China or Indostan accordingly is, by all accounts, much more numerous and splendid than that of the richest subjects of Europe.