Don’t try to make a profit on a bad trade; just try to find the best place to get out.

A shopkeeper will never get the more custom by beating his customers; and what is true of a shopkeeper is true of a shopkeeping nation.

The money we have is the means to liberty; that which we pursue is the means to slavery.

Trade’s proud empire hastes to swift decay.

Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with the necessities.

Everyone lives by selling something.

The human working stock is of interest only insofar as it is profitable.

We are a commercial people. We cannot boast of our arts, our crafts, our cultivation; our boast is in the wealth we produce.

Wherever commerce prevails there will be an inequality of wealth, and wherever the latter does a simplicity of manners must decline.

Wants keep pace with wealth always.

For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation.

Some people make stuff; other people have to buy it. And when we gave up making stuff, starting in the 1980s, we were left with the unique role of buying.

The period is not very remote when the benefits of a liberal and free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations and horrors of war.