The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.

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

Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.

An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time and labour, he has also to sacrifice his mind too - at least all the characteristics part of it that which is original and most his own.

Capital must be propelled by self-interest; it cannot be enticed by benevolence.

Efficiency in an assembly requires a solid mass of steady votes; and these are collected by a deferential attachment to particular men, or by a belief in the principles that those men represent, and they are maintained by fear of those men - by the fear that if you vote against them, you may soon yourself have no vote at all.

No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.