It Is Not For Its Own Sake

Are You In Earnest Resolved Never To Barter Your Liberty For The Lordly Servitude Of A Court, But To Live Free, Fearless, And Independent? There Seems To Be One Way To Continue In That Virtuous Resolution; And Perhaps But One. Never Enter The Place From Whence So Few Have Been Able To Return; Never Come Within The Circle Of Ambition; Nor Ever Bring Yourself Into Comparison With Those Masters Of The Earth Who Have Already Engrossed The Attention Of Half Mankind Before You.

That Wealth And Greatness Are Often Regarded With The Respect And Admiration Which Are Due Only To Wisdom And Virtue; And That The Contempt, Of Which Vice And Folly Are The Only Proper Objects, Is Most Often Unjustly Bestowed Upon Poverty And Weakness, Has Been The Complaint Of Moralists In All Ages.

Every Man Lives By Exchanging.

The Learned Ignore The Evidence Of Their Senses To Preserve The Coherence Of The Ideas Of Their Imagination.

It Is The Highest Impertinence And Presumption, Therefore, In Kings And Ministers To Pretend To Watch Over The Economy Of Private People, And To Restrain Their Expense. They Are Themselves, Always, And Without Any Exception, The Greatest Spendthrifts In The Society.