Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.

Business is really more agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind, the aggregate nature of man more continuously, and more deeply. But it does not look as if it did.

Adventure is the life of commerce, but caution is the life of banking.

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.

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life.

The peculiar essence of our banking system is an unprecedented trust between man and man. And when that trust is much weakened by hidden causes, a small accident may greatly hurt it, and a great accident for a moment may almost destroy it.