Adam Smith

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.

The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.

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.

After all the proper subjects of taxation have been exhausted, if the exigencies of the state still continue to require new taxes, they must be imposed upon improper ones.

[Governments are] …without exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.

The agents of [government] regard the wealth of their master as inexhaustible; are careless at what price they buy … at what price they sell.