The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition . . . is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural prog….

The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other c….

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest..

A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it's people..

It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society..

Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good..

I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations..

There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people..

The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer..

The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, h….

The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be... The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experie….

The interest of [businessmen] is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public ... The proposal of any new law or ….

But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality..

A sketch of a man facing to the right..

For a very small expence the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acq….

A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; o….

It must always be remembered, however, that it is the luxuries, and not the necessary expense of the inferior ranks of people, that ought ever to be ….

Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life..

We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it..

Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public in….

In ease of body, peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway, p….