"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, though necessary both to establish and to maint…"

"The greatest fault of the rich is that they are less sensible of the wants of the poor than the poor are of the wants of the rich."

"The most opulent nations, indeed, are in general the most happy and comfortable."

"It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."

"The progress of opulence, therefore, naturally produces a greater rise in the real price of labour than in that of the rude produce of land."