"regulation is useful and proper, when aimed at the prevention of fraud or contrivance, manifestly injurious to other kinds of production, or to the public safety, and not at prescribing the nature of the products and the methods of fabrication."

"Freedoms and apprenticeships are likewise expedients of police,not of that wholesome branch of police, whose object is the maintenance of the public and private security, and which is neither costly nor vexatious; but of that sort of police which bad governments employ to preserve or extend their personal authority at any expense."

"A tax can never be favorable to the public welfare, except by the good use that is made of its proceeds."

"The day will come, sooner or later, when people will wonder at the necessity of taking all this trouble to expose the folly of a system, so childish and absurd, and yet so often enforced at the point of a bayonet."

"I have made no distinction between the circulation of goods and of money, because there really is none."

"The encouragement of mere consumption is no benefit to commerce; for the difficulty lies in supplying the means, not in stimulating the desire of consumption; and we have seen that production alone, furnishes those means. Thus, it is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption."

"The United States will have the honour of proving experimentally, that true policy goes hand in hand with moderation and humanity."

"A man who applies his labour to the investing of objects with value by the creation of utility of some sort, can not expect such a value to be appreciated and paid for, unless where other men have the means of purchasing it. Now, of what do these means consist? Of other values of other products, likewise the fruits of industry, capital, and land. Which leads us to a conclusion that may at first appear paradoxical, namely, that it is production which opens a demand for products."

"There is no security of property, where a despotic authority can possess itself of the property of the subject against his consent. Neither is there such security, where the consent is merely nominal and delusive."

"The love of domination never attains more than a factitious elevation, that is sure to make enemies of all its neighbours."

"A shop-keeper in good business is quite as well off as a pedlar that travels the country with his wares on his back. Commercial jealousy is, after all, nothing but prejudice: it is a wild fruit, that will drop of itself when it has arrived at maturity."

"To have never done anything but make the eighteenth part of a pin, is a sorry account for a human being to give of his existence."

"The celebrated Adam Smith was the first to point out the immense increase of production, and the superior perfection of products referable to this division of labour."

"Labour, upon whichever of those operations it be bestowed, is productive, because it concurs in the creation of a product. Thus the labour of the philosopher, whether experimental or literary, is productive; the labour of the adventurer or master-manufacturer is productive, although he perform no actual manual work; the labour of every operative workman is productive, from the common day-labourer in agriculture, to the pilot that governs the motion of a ship."

"When a tree, a natural product, is felled, is society put into possession of no greater produce than that of the mere labour of the woodman?"

"Capital must work, as it were, in concert with industry; and this concurrence is what I call the productive agency of capital."

"Capital in the hands of a national government forms a part of the gross national capital."

"The wants of mankind are supplied and satisfied out of the gross values produced and created, and not out of the net values only."

"No human being has the faculty of originally creating matter, which is more than nature itself can do. But any one may avail himself of the agents offered him by nature, to invest matter with utility."

"The quantity of money, which is readily parted with to obtain a thing is called its price."

"Still how unenlightened and ignorant are the very nations we term civilized!"

"With no fixed opinions in relation to the causes of public prosperity, the nation, like a ship without chart or compass, was driven about by the caprice of the winds and the folly of the pilot, alike ignorant of the place of her departure or destination."

"But, is it possible for princes and ministers to be enlightened, when private individuals are not so?"

"The haggardness of poverty is everywhere seen contrasted with the sleekness of wealth, the exhorted labour of some compensating for the idleness of others, wretched hovels by the side of stately colonnades, the rags of indigence blended with the ensigns of opulence; in a word, the most useless profusion in the midst of the most urgent wants."

"How many other opinions, as universally prevailing and as much respected, will in like manner pass away?"

"It is, perhaps, a well founded objection to Mr. Ricardo, that he sometimes reasons upon abstract principles to which he gives too great a generalization."

"What can we expect from nations still less advanced in civilization than the Greeks?"

"Political economy has only become a science since it has been confined to the results of inductive investigation."

"Nothing can be more idle than the opposition of theory to practice!"

"With respect to the present time, there are few persons who unite the qualifications of good observers with a situation favourable for accurate observation."

"The manner in which things exist and take place, constitutes what is called the nature of things; and a careful observation of the nature of things is the sole foundation of all truth."

"A science only advances with certainty, when the plan of inquiry and the object of our researches have been clearly defined; otherwise a small number of truths are loosely laid hold of, without their connexion being perceived, and numerous errors, without being enabled to detect their fallacy."

"Taxation being a burthen, must needs weigh lightest on each individual, when it bears upon all alike."

"The occupation of the stock-jobber yields no new or useful product; consequently having no product of his own to give in exchange, he has no revenue to subsist upon, but what he contrives to make out of the unskilfulness or ill-fortune of gamesters like himself."

"A treasure does not always contribute to the political security of its possessors. It rather invites attack, and very seldom is faithfully applied to the purpose for which it was destined."

"The command of a large sum is a dangerous temptation to a national administration. Though accumulated at their expense, the people rarely, if ever profit by it: yet in point of fact, all value, and consequently, all wealth, originates with the people."

"The best scheme of finance is, to spend as little as possible; and the best tax is always the lightest."

"The wealthy are generally impressed with an idea, that they shall never stand in need of public charitable relief; but a little less confidence would become them better."

"If the community wish to have the benefit of more knowledge and intelligence in the labouring classes, it must dispense it at the public charge."

"An uniformity of weights and measures, arranged upon mathematical principles, would be a benefit to the whole commercial world, if it were wise enough to adopt such an expedient."

"Every individual, from the common mechanic, that works in wood or clay, to the prime minister that regulates with the dash of his pen the agriculture, the breeding of cattle, the mining, or the commerce of a nation, will perform his business the better, the better he understands the nature of things,and the more his understanding is enlightened."

"Dominion by land or sea will appear equally destitute of attraction, when it comes to be generally understood, that all its advantages rest with the rulers, and that the subjects at large derive no benefit whatever."

"Women think of all colors except the absence of color. I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony."

"He will soon be claiming that the Resistance has liberated the world."

"There is nothing more comfortable than a caterpillar and nothing more made for love than a butterfly. We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly. Fashion is at once a caterpillar and a butterfly, caterpillar by day, butterfly by night"

"Fashion is made to become unfashionable."

"How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone."

"In 1919 I woke up famous. I'd never guessed it. If I'd known I was famous, I'd have stolen away and wept. I was stupid. I was supposed to be intelligent. I was sensitive and very dumb."

"Youth is something very new: Twenty years ago no one mentioned it."

"Despite the work of a dozen biographers … Chanel remains an enigma."