David Hume Quotes

To give the like liberty and privilege to foreigners, that English-men have, might be a means to undo the natives; for foreigners by their Correspondents abroad, and industry at home, will gain all the trade to themselves, and also by purchasing of estates, will make our land much the dearer.

Instead … of an augmentation of military force proportioned to our extension of frontier, I proposed a moderate enlargement of the capital employed in that commerce, as a more effectual, economical, and humane instrument for preserving peace and good neighborhood with them

We have neglected industry and commerce just as we have neglected every other opportunity of progress.

The precondition of all happiness…and particularly of economic and commercial development is tranquility, security and order beyond the reach of any violation.

Most people work for the private sector, which cannot exist without profit.

Countries trade with one another for the same reasons that individuals, businesses, and regions do: to exploit their comparative advantages.

Commerce is the weapon …., the all powerful arm with which we have entered in earnest, with every prospect of success, upon our conquest of Mexico.

Canada is encompassed by many powerful Colonies of English who labor incessantly to ruin it by exciting all our Indians, and drawing them away with their peltries for which said English give them a great deal more merchandise than the French.

Nations finding the Export of Money or Bullion to pay the ballance due by Trade, a loss of so much Riches, and very hurtful to Trade, might have discharg'd the Import of such Goods as the People could best want; Or laid a Duty on them, such as might have lessen'd their Consumption: They might have given encouragement to Industry, whereby the Product would have been encreas'd and improv'd, or discourag'd extravagant Consumption, whereby the Overplus to Export would have been greater; Any one of these Methods would have brought Trade and Exchange equal

In international trade it’s always the 5 percent of that which works less well that gets most of the attention compared to the 95 percent that is functioning well.

There were no less than twenty thousand shops in Cairo, all of which belong to the sultan (al-Mustansir). Many shops are rented for as much as ten dinars a month, and none for less than two. There is no end of caravanserais, bathhouses and other public buildings - all property of the sultan, for no one owns any property except houses and what he himself builds….In the midst of the houses in the city are gardens and orchards watered by wells. In the sultan's harem are the most beautiful gardens imaginable. Water-wheels have been constructed to irrigate these gardens. There are trees planted and pleasure parks built even on the roofs …. All the houses of Cairo are built separate one from another, so that no one's trees or outbuildings are against anyone else's walls. Cairo has four cathedral mosques where men pray on Fridays.

If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.

The strong point of England is her cheap goods.

When Interest is less, Trade is incourag'd, and the Merchant can be a Gainer; whereas, when it is great, the Usurer, or Money-owner takes all. The Dutch, with whom Interest is low, Trade cheaper, and under-sell us.

Out of this modern civilization, economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

The state does not possess trade or industry. Its wealth is the wealth of the people and the people’s wealth is not possible without the spread of these sciences amongst them so that they may know the ways for acquiring wealth.

It is impossible for any power to become eminent in commerce, without excelling in manufactures and navigation. America is capable of supporting and increasing both …

We have not only made a nation, rough-hewn and popularly governed, the marvel of development among great nations; we have contributed to the uplift and elevated the standard of living; we have not only become leaders in finance and industry; we have not only become equals in education and rivals in art, but we are the inspiration and example of other republics, and ought to be, could be, influencing the idealization of the government of the earth. It justifies our pride in the past, explains the nation-wide turning to the party for the country’s restoration, and gives every assurance of glorious triumphs in the future.

Without a consumer society there was no need for an industrial revolution.

America was not discovered. America was built.

This kingdom [Colombia] … does not enjoy an active commerce. It’s subsistence consists of gold taken from its mines, without trade, export of its agriculture and manufactures…. The local officials everywhere are indifferent and careless as to their duty; the people are steeped in poverty; trade is almost extinct; capital is lacking, and there are no opportunities for its investment; the only source of support is the cultivation of small patches of ground. Every one seeks to subsist on the government by procuring some little office.

We need companies to create jobs.

In the 19th century China dominated the manufacture of porcelain. Then European factories discovered a cheaper method of making pottery of equal quality, demolishing the Chinese industry the exact reverse of what is happening now. World economics have turned full circle.

It is a business. I know we, as athletes and owners and people involved with the NBA, never want to say that it's a business and things like that. It is a business.

The world of commerce is a kind of a purgatory itself.