Man Is An Animal That Makes Bargains:

Upstart Greatness Is Everywhere Less Respected Than Ancient Greatness.

All For Ourselves, And Nothing For Other People, Seems, In Every Age Of The World, To Have Been The Vile Maxim Of The Masters Of Mankind.

In Raising The Price Of Commodities, The Rise Of Wages Operates In The Same Manner As Simple Interest Does In The Accumulation Of Debt. Our Merchants And Master Manufacturers Complain Much Of The Bad Effects Of High Wages In Raising The Price, And Thereby Lessening The Sale Of Their Goods, Both At Home And Abroad. They Say Nothing Concerning The Bad Effects Of High Profits; They Are Silent With Regard To The Pernicious Effects Of Their Own Gains. They Complain Only Of Those Of Other People.

The Uniform, Constant, And Uninterrupted Effort Of Every Man To Better His Condition . . . Is Frequently Powerful Enough To Maintain The Natural Progress Of Things Toward Improvement, In Spite Of The Extravagance Of Government, And Of The Greatest Errors Of Administration.

The Liberal Reward Of Labor, Therefore, As It Is The Necessary Effect, So It Is The Natural Symptom Of Increasing National Wealth. The Scanty Maintenance Of The Laboring Poor, On The Other Hand, Is The Natural Symptom That Things Are At A Stand, And Their Starving Condition That They Going Backwards Fast.