The state, by relieving idleness, improvidence, or misconduct from punishment, and depriving abstinence and foresight of the reward, which have been provided for them by nature, may indeed destroy wealth, but most certainly will aggravate poverty.

To abstain from the enjoyment which is in our power, or to seek distant rather than immediate results, are among the most painful exertions of the human will.

The surplus revenue which they occasion beyond average wages and profits is a revenue for which no additional sacrifice has been made.

Thus, in ordinary language, the word Capital is sometimes used as comprehending every species of Wealth, and sometimes as confined to Money.

That, agricultural skill remaining the same, additional labour employed on the land within a given district, produces a less proportionate return.

The first, or theoretic branch, that which explains the nature, production, and distribution of wealth, will be found to rest on a very few general propositions, which are the result of observation, or consciousness.

The payment made by a manufacturer to a patentee for the privilege of using the patent process, is usually termed, in commercial language, a rent; and under the same head must be ranked all extraordinary qualities of body and mind.

That the powers of labour, and of the other instruments which produce wealth, may be indefinitely increased by using their products as the means of further production.

That every person is desirous to obtain, with as little sacrifice as possible, as much as possible of the articles of wealth.

Value denotes a relation reciprocally existing between two objects, and the precise relation which it denotes is the quantity of the one which can be obtained in exchange for a given quantity of the other.