Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.

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.

Language is life and a true backbone of any society!

Has anybody ever seen a drama critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

When a woman becomes her individual most effective close friend existence is simpler.

My paternal grandmother gave me the courage to investigate things and not take things at face value or judge people by what I first imagine them to be.

If you are only an underling, don't dress too fine.

This precept descended from Heaven: know thyself.

Every novel is-at the beginning-the same opening of a door onto a completely unknown space.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

Let weak Christians know that a spark from heaven, though kindled under green wood that sobs and smokes, yet it will consume all at last.