Upstart Greatness Is Everywhere Less Respected Than

People Of The Same Trade Seldom Meet Together, Even For Merriment And Diversion, But The Conversation Ends In A Conspiracy Against The Public, Or In Some Contrivance To Raise Prices. It Is Impossible Indeed To Prevent Such Meetings, By Any Law Which Either Could Be Executed, Or Would Be Consistent With Liberty Or Justice. But Though The Law Cannot Hinder People Of The Same Trade From Sometimes Assembling Together, It Ought To Do Nothing To Facilitate Such Assemblies; Much Less To Render Them Necessary.

The Disposition To Admire, And Almost To Worship, The Rich And The Powerful, And To Despise, Or, At Least, To Neglect Persons Of Poor And Mean Condition Is The Great And Most Universal Cause Of The Corruption Of Our Moral Sentiments.

The Statesman Who Should Attempt To Direct Private People In What Manner They Ought To Employ Their Capitals Would Not Only Load Himself With Most Unnecessary Attention But Assume An Authority Which Could Safely Be Trusted To No Council And Senate Whatever, And Which Would Nowhere Be So Dangerous As In The Hands Of Man Who Have Folly And Presumption Enough To Fancy Himself Fit To Exercise It.

Every Tax, However, Is To The Person Who Pays It A Badge, Not Of Slavery But Of Liberty. It Denotes That He Is A Subject To Government, Indeed, But That, As He Has Some Property, He Cannot Himself Be The Property Of A Master.

The Man Of System, On The Contrary, Is Apt To Be Very Wise In His Own Conceit; And Is Often So Enamoured With The Supposed Beauty Of His Own Ideal Plan Of Government, That He Cannot Suffer The Smallest Deviation From Any Part Of It... He Seems To Imagine That He Can Arrange The Different Members Of A Great Society With As Much Ease As The Hand Arranges The Different Pieces Upon A Chess-board. He Does Not Consider That...in The Great Chess-board Of Human Society, Every Single Piece Has A Principle Of Motion Of Its Own, Altogether Different From That Which The Legislature Might Choose To Impress Upon It.