"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 interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
 

"A fish stinks first from the head."

Adage about leadership, widely quoted and attributed.

"the following are the possible ways for the listener to react to the communication: 1. he may accept the speaker and accept his statement; 2. he may accept the speaker but reject his statement; 3. he may reject the speaker but accept his statement; 4. he may reject the speaker and reject his statement. A person with what [Michigan State U.’s Milton] Rokeach calls a ‘closed mind’ is able to have only reactions (1) and (4)…

S.I. Hayakawa Language in Thought and Action

"I beg you to believe in the most ridiculous of all superstitions: that humanity is at the centre of the universe, the fulfiller or the frustrator of the grandest dreams of God Almighty. If you can believe that and make others believe it, human beings might stop treating each other like garbage."

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. in a 1970 commencement address according to "Thought du Jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe & Mail June 11, 2003

"tough as goat guts"

Former New York Times editor Howell Raines (of his predecessor James Reston), quoted by Robert Fulford in National Post March 26, 2004

"Know Thyself"

The inscription on the temple at Delphi "ascribed to Apollo himself" according to Juvenal

“Feats were done, doubt it not, far-famed in Parish History; but to Universal History unknown.”

Thomas Carlyle The French Revolution

"You know, there is one thing you can trust everybody to do. You can trust everybody to put his interest above yours."

Armen Alchain, quoted by Milton Friedman