The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy..

Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence..

Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness..

It is not the actual greatness of national wealth, but its continual increase, which occasions a rise in the wages of labour. It is not, accordingly,….

Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them..

All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist..

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 ….

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and deman….

China is a much richer country than any part of Europe..

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….

Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good..

It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it..

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administ….

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable..

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..

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

The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious antipathy to the sea; a superstition nearly of the same kind prevails among the Indians; and the Chinese ha….

When we have read a book or poem so often that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by ourselves, we can still take pleasure in reading ….

Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love..

Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune..

The cheapness of wine seems to be a cause, not of drunkenness, but of sobriety. ...People are seldom guilty of excess in what is their daily fare... ….