Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.

The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.

Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.

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

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.

Man, an animal that makes bargains.

It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does or does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect it altogether, or, if he is subject to some authority which will not suffer him to do this, to perform it in as careless and slovenly a manner as that authority will permit.