Defense is superior to opulence.

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

That a joint stock company should be able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private adventurers can come into any sort of open and fair competition with them, seems contrary to all experience.

When we have read a book or poem so often that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by ourselves, we can still take pleasure in reading it to a companion. To him it has all the graces of novelty.

That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.

When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than before.

The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.