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

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

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

The rate of profit... is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.

Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attornies, at least, must always be paid by the parties; and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they actually perform it.

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.

Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.