Wonder... and not any expectation of advantage from its discoveries, is the first principle which prompts mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature.

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 real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.

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

Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.

A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.