From the public-domain record · 81,371 quotes
Founders, statesmen and world leaders — cited from their collected works.
The figures
It would seem, by the exterior appearance of such countries, that all was happiness; but there lies hidden from the eye of common observation, a mass of wretchedness, that has scarcely any other chance, than to expire in poverty or infamy.
When, in countries that are called civilised, we see age going to the workhouse and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of government.
Whether robbery shall be banished from courts, and wretchedness from countries?
Whether the fruits of his labours shall be enjoyed by himself or consumed by the profligacy of governments?
It is not whether this or that party shall be in or not, or Whig or Tory, high or low shall prevail; but whether man shall inherit his rights, and universal civilisation take place?
While despotism warred with despotism, man had no interest in the contest; but in a cause that unites the soldier with the citizen, and nation with nation, the despotism of courts, though it feels the danger and meditates revenge, is…
Alliances, contrary to all former systems, are agitating, and a common interest of courts is forming against the common interest of man.
But it is with revolutions as with commerce, the advantages increase by their becoming general, and double to either what each would receive alone.
It is only by each nation reforming its own, that the whole can be improved, and the full benefit of reformation enjoyed.
The expense of maintaining dominion more than absorbs the profits of any trade.
To a few individuals it may be beneficial, merely because it is commerce; but to the nation it is a loss.
Though the principle of all commerce is the same, the domestic, in a national view, is the part the most beneficial; because the whole of the advantages, an both sides, rests within the nation; whereas, in foreign commerce, it is only a…
The present increase of commerce is not to be attributed to ministers, or to any political contrivances, but to its own natural operation in consequence of peace.
When, therefore, governments are at war, the attack is made upon a common stock of commerce, and the consequence is the same as if each had attacked his own.
There can be no such thing as a nation flourishing alone in commerce: she can only participate; and the destruction of it in any part must necessarily affect all.
If they are poor she cannot be rich, and her condition, be what it may, is an index of the height of the commercial tide in other nations.
It is possible that a nation may be the carrier for the world, but she cannot be the merchant.
Could the government of England destroy the commerce of all other nations, she would most effectually ruin her own.
When the ability in any nation to buy is destroyed, it equally involves the seller.
Like blood, it cannot be taken from any of the parts, without being taken from the whole mass in circulation, and all partake of the loss.
Every kind of destruction or embarrassment serves to lessen the quantity, and it matters but little in what part of the commercial world the reduction begins.
As the two are nearly the opposite of each other, consequently, the uncivilised state of the European governments is injurious to commerce.
Commerce is no other than the traffic of two individuals, multiplied on a scale of numbers; and by the same rule that nature intended for the intercourse of two, she intended that of all.
Whatever has a tendency to promote the civil intercourse of nations by an exchange of benefits, is a subject as worthy of philosophy as of politics.
