A writer may tell me that he thinks man will ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him.

The histories of mankind are histories only of the higher classes.

It is a mere futile process to exchange one set of commodities for another, if the parties; after this new distribution of goods has taken place, are not better off than they were before.

The love of independence is a sentiment that surely none would wish to see erased from the breast of man, though the parish law of England, it must be confessed, is a system of all others the most calculated gradually to weaken this sentiment, and in the end may eradicate it completely.

To minds of a certain cast there is nothing so captivating as simplification and generalization.

Where are we to look for the consumption required but among the unproductive labourers of Adam Smith?.

The finest minds seem to be formed rather by efforts at original thinking, by endeavours to form new combinations, and to discover new truths, than by passively receiving the impressions of other men's ideas.