Quotes about trade

This instinctive repulsion which tradespeople inspire in men of sensitive feeling is one of the very rare consolations for being so impoverished which are given to those of us who don't sell anything to anybody.

— Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Is there something in trade that desiccates and flattens out, that turns men into dried leaves at the age of forty? Certainly there is. It is not due to trade but to intensity of self-seeking, combined with narrowness of occupation. Business has destroyed the very knowledge in us of all other natural forces except business.

— John Jay Chapman

Protection is not a principle but an expedient.

— Benjamin Disraeli

The greatest meliorator of the world is selfish, huckstering Trade.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

— Thomas Jefferson

Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity. Trade makes men independent of one another and gives them a high idea of their personal importance: it leads them to want to manage their own affairs and teaches them to succeed therein. Hence it makes them inclined to liberty but disinclined to revolution.

— Alexis De Tocqueville