I never have known a man of ordinary common-sense who did not urge upon his sons, from earliest childhood, doctrines of economy and the practice of accumulation.

The truth is that cupidity, selfishness, envy, malice, lust, vindictiveness, are constant vices of human nature.

The great hindrance to the development of this continent has lain in the lack of capital.

For A to sit down and think, What shall I do? is commonplace; but to think what B ought to do is interesting, romantic, moral, self-flattering, and public-spirited all at once. It satisfies a great number of human weaknesses at once. To go on and plan what a whole class of people ought to do is to feel one's self a power on earth, to win a public position, to clothe one's self in dignity. Hence we have an unlimited supply of reformers, philanthropists, humanitarians, and would-be managers-in-general of society.

The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches.

Any one who believes that any great enterprise of an industrial character can be started without labor must have little experience of life.

It generally troubles them [the reformers] not a whit that their remedy implies a complete reconstruction of society, or even a reconstitution of human nature.