One cannot make men good by Act of Parliament.

No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.

The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does most good or harm.

The best security for people's doing their duty is that they should not know anything else to do.

Not only does a bureaucracy tend to under-government in point of quality; it tends to over-government in point of quantity.

Life is not a set campaign, but an irregular work, and the main forces in it are not overt resolutions, but latent and half-involuntary promptings.

Credit means that a certain confidence is given, and a certain trust reposed. Is that trust justified? And is that confidence wise? These are the cardinal questions. To put it more simply credit is a set of promises to pay; will those promises be kept?