It is a mistake to think that one limits one’s risk by spreading too much between enterprises about which one knows little and has no reason for special confidence.

Nothing can preserve the integrity of contact between individuals, except a discretionary authority in the state to revise what has become intolerable. The powers of uninterrupted usury are too great. If the accretions of vested interests were to grow without mitigation for many generations, half the population would be no better than slaves to the other half.

As time goes on, I get more and more convinced that the right method of investment is to put fairly large sums into enterprises which one thinks one knows something about and in the management of which one thoroughly believes.

Galton's eccentric, sceptical, observing, flashing, cavalry-leader type of mind led him eventually to become the founder of the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists, namely eugenics.

If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.

The old saying holds. Owe your banker �1000 and you are at his mercy; owe him �1 million and the position is reversed.

Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians.