The distribution of wealth, therefore, depends on the laws and customs of society. - Robert Heilbroner

David Ricardo saw that the escalator worked with different effects on different classes, that some rode triumphantly to the top, while others were carried up a few steps and then kicked back down to the bottom.

The Wealth of Nations may not be an original book, but it is unquestionably a masterpiece.

Very few of the heroes of the Golden Age of American finance had much interest in the solid realities of what underlay their structure of stocks and bonds and credits.