What Is Prudence In The Conduct Of

The Interest Of The Dealers, However, In Any Particular Branch Of Trade Or Manufactures, Is Always In Some Respects Different From, And Even Opposite To, That Of The Public. To Widen The Market And To Narrow The Competition, Is Always The Interest Of The Dealers.

To Subject Every Private Family To The Odious Visits And Examination Of The Tax-gatherers ... Would Be Altogether Inconsistent With Liberty.

The Interest Of [businessmen] Is Always In Some Respects Different From, And Even Opposite To, That Of The Public ... The Proposal Of Any New Law Or Regulation Of Commerce Which Comes From This Order ... Ought Never To Be Adopted, Till After Having Been Long And Carefully Examined ... With The Most Suspicious Attention. It Comes From An Order Of Men ... Who Have Generally An Interest To Deceive And Even Oppress The Public.

Ask Any Rich Man Of Common Prudence To Which Of The Two Sorts Of People He Has Lent The Greater Part Of His Stock, To Those Who, He Thinks, Will Employ It Profitably, Or To Those Who Will Spend It Idly, And He Will Laugh At You For Proposing The Question.

All For Ourselves, And Nothing For Other People, Seems, In Every Age Of The World, To Have Been The Vile Maxim Of The Masters Of Mankind.