That some are poorer than others, ever was and ever will be: And that many are naturally querulous and envious, is an Evil as old as the World.
William PettyWherefore the race being not to the swift, etc. but time and chance happening to all men, I leave the Judgement of the whole to the Candid, of whose correction I shall never be impatient.
William PettyA thousand acres that can feed a thousand souls is better than ten thousand acres of no more effect.
William PettyThe method I take to do this is not yet very usual; for instead of using only comparative and superlative Words, and intellectual Arguments, I have taken the course (as a Specimen of the Political Arithmetic I have long aimed at) to express myself in Terms of Number, Weight, or Measure; to use only Arguments of Sense, and to consider only such Causes, as have visible Foundations in Nature.
William Petty