As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. – Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with rest; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm us. – Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt

By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber. – Henry David Thoreau