Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.

Whether a bank lent one million, ten million, or a hundred millions, they would not permanently alter the market rate of interest; they would alter only the value of the money they issued.

After all the fertile land in the immediate neighbourhood of the first settlers were cultivated, if capital and population increased, more food would be required, and it could only be procured from land not so advantageously situated.

Experience, however, shows that neither a state nor a bank ever have [sic] had the unrestricted power of issuing paper money without abusing that power; in all states, therefore, the issue of paper money ought to be under some check and control; and none seems so proper for that purpose as that of subjecting the issuers of paper money to the obligation of paying their notes either in gold coin or bullion.

I have endeavoured to show that the ability to pay taxes depends, not on the gross money value of the mass of commodities, nor on the net money value of the revenue of capitalists and landlords, but on the money value of each man's revenue compared to the money value of the commodities which he usually consumes.

Neither machines, nor the commodities made by them, rise in real value, but all commodities made by machines fall, and fall in proportion to their durability.

It appears to me that one great cause of our difference in opinion on subjects which we often discuss is that you have always in mind the immediate and temporary effects of particular changes, whereas I put these effects quite aside, and fix my whole attention on the long-term effects that will result from them.