By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter as a mastiff is from a greyhound.
By pursuing his own interest [an individual] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
Corn is a necessary; silver is only a superfluity.
Every man is...fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.
Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.
Hatred and anger are the greatest poison to the happiness of a good mind.
How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility?
It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.
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.
It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely.
Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.
The beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.
The difference between...a philosopher and a common street porter...seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education.
The man who esteems himself as he ought, and no more than he ought, seldom fails to obtain from other people all the esteem that he himself thinks due.
The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil for which...the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.
The wise and virtuous man is at all times willing that his own private interests should be sacrificed to the public interest of his own particular society.
The work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.
We may often fulfill all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.