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 administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.
All money is a matter of belief.
Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty.
Poor David Hume is dying fast, but with more real cheerfulness and good humor and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things, than any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.
With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.
No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.
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.
Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.
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 demand a rent even for its natural produce.
Defense is superior to opulence.
Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things.