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

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.

To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should never be established in it.

I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.

With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.

The tolls for the maintenance of a high road, cannot with any safety be made the property of private persons.

Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention.