Daniel Webster on economics

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.

Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.

The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.

Alexander Hamilton1757–1804Letter to Robert Morris (30 April 1781)

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

Milton Friedman1912–2006Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, 2002 edition, page 15

• Business
• Freedom

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own neccessities but of their advantages.

Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter II, p. 19.In context