“The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to ...”

“The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference betwee...”

“Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them.”

“The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance...”

“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those wh...”

“In regards to the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates as simple interest does, the rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad ef...”

“The two ideas, justice and vocation, are inseparable.... It is by way of the principle and practice of vocation that sanctity and reverence enter into the human economy. It was thus possible for tr...”

“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”

“Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”

“While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwhelming gaiety, insupportable grandeur, sombre desolation are flung at you. Make what you can of t...”

“...[N]ature generally in the distribution of her capacities has adapted the means to the end... [so nature's] true destination must be to produce a will, not merely good as a means to something els...”

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.”

“War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up some failure on the part of the adults.”

“War is the echo that never dies. No society strives for war, they are always tricked into it.”

“How can our words ever truly be our own? Since we started growing all we've been taught is to care how we represent our persona and how we should communicate appropriately and how we portrait ourse...”