Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.

• 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 real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.
• The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.
• All money is a matter of belief.
• Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
• Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
• What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?
• What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?
• Poor David Hume is dying fast, but with more real cheerfulness and good humor and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things, than any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.
• This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.