Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State.

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.

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.

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.

What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

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

Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

I have dozens of loyal fans! Baker's dozens! …they come in thirteens.

Losing a mate to death is devastating but it's not a personal attack like divorce. When somebody you love stops loving you and walks away, it's an insult beyond comparison.

As soon as you made a decision that time is going to be currency, then it should be a reflection of what's happening today. And obviously, it is.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

I don't think there is too much art involved in what I do.

Conservatives and liberals can find common ground.

The most important use of NVC may be in developing self-compassion.

A person's relationship with food is one of their most important relationships.

Persistence isn't using the same tactics over and over. Persistence is having the same goal over and over.

Honesty is the most subversive of all disguises.