“As a man of civil profession seems awkward in a camp or a garrison, and is even in some danger of being despised there, so does an idle man among men of business.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have got a little, it is often easy to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“The greatness of a state and the happiness of its subjects, however independent they may be supposed in some respects, are commonly allowed to be inseparable with regard to commerce.” – David Hume, Political Discourses
“Poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced, but in so cold a soil, and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Servants, labourers and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“A man is of all sorts of luggage the most difficult to be transported.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Masters are always and every where in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour . . . . To violate this combination is every where a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“What are the common wages of labour, depends every where upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour. It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. . . . In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Foul words is but foul wind and foul wind is but foul breath.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 5.2
“In a false quarrel there is no true valour.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 5.1
“There was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently, however they have writ the style of gods, and make a pish at chance and sufferance.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 5.1
“Men can counsel and speak comfort to that grief which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it, their counsel turns to passion, which before would give preceptial medicine to rage, fetter strong madness in a silken thread, charm ache with air and agony with words: no, no; ’tis all men’s office to speak patience to those that wring under the load of sorrow; but no man’s virtue nor sufficiency to be so moral when he shall endure the like himself.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 5.1
“What we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it; but being lack’d and lost, why, then we rack the value; then we find the virtue that possession would not show us whiles it was ours.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 4.1
“O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do! not knowing what they do!” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 4.1
“When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 3.3
“Every one can master a grief but he who has it.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 3.2
“How much an ill word may empoison liking.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 3.1
“The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish cut with her golden oars the silver stream, and greedily devour the treacherous bait.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 3.1
“Doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 2.3
“Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 2.3
“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more; men were deceivers ever; one foot in sea and one on shore, to one thing constant never; then sigh not so, but let them go, and be you blithe and bonny; converting all your sounds of woe into, Hey nonny, nonny.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 2.3
“Friendship is constant in all other things save in the office and affairs of love.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 2.1
“Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 2.1
“What need the bridge much broader than the flood! The fairest grant is the necessity. Look, what will serve is fit.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 1.1
“How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping?” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 1.1
“A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers.” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing 1.1
“Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over . . . Death is not anything . . . death is not . . . It’s the absence of presence, nothing more . . . the endless time of never coming back . . . a gap you can’t see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound . . .” – Tom Stoppard, Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
“Life is a gamble, at terrible odds—if it was a bet you wouldn’t take it.” – Tom Stoppard, Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
“As Socrates so philosophically put it, since we don’t know what death is, it is illogical to fear it. It might be . . . very nice. Certainly it is a release from the burdens of life.” – Tom Stoppard, Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
“You can’t act death. The fact of it is nothing to do with seeing it happen—it’s not gasps and blood and falling about—that isn’t what makes it death. It’s just a man failing to reappear, that’s all—now you see him, now you don’t, that’s the only thing that’s real: here one minute and gone the next and never coming back.” – Tom Stoppard, Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (emphasis in original)