The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.
All money is a matter of belief.
To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.
Defense is superior to opulence.
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.
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.
Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition.
This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.
I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.
What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?
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.
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.