Observe some few individuals, they are lowered by it; survey mankind, it is raised.

I am not afraid to say that the principle of interest, rightly understood, appears to me the best suited of all philosophical theories to the wants of the men of our time, and that I regard it as their chief remaining security against themselves.

Towards it, therefore, the minds of the moralists of our age should turn; even should they judge it to be incomplete, it must nevertheless be adopted as necessary.
I do not think upon the whole that there is more egotism amongst us than in America; the only difference is, that there it is enlightened--here it is not.

Every American will sacrifice a portion of his private interests to preserve the rest; we would fain preserve the whole, and oftentimes the whole is lost.

Everybody I see about me seems bent on teaching his contemporaries, by precept and example, that what is useful is never wrong.