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

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.

If you do not understand, you cannot love. You can only imagine that you love.

Friendships offer more than happiness and a feeling of mutual camaraderie

Matthew Arnold was a fastidious social critic and hence an accomplished complainer. When he died, an acquaintance said: "Poor Matt, he's going to Heaven, no doubt – but he won't like God.

Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.

We may learn anew what compassion and beauty are, and pause to listen to the Earth's music.

I sweat real sweat and I shake real shakes.

Have to Find ...life ...is ...a— ...gamble ...after ...all.

Poverty makes people do reckless things, but [the rich] do worse to protect their [interests]

Man's happiness really lies in contentment.

Words, like tranquil waters behind a dam, can become reckless and uncontrollable torrents of destruction when released without caution and wisdom.