Adam Smith Quotes
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How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.
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In England, and in all Roman Catholic countries, the lottery of the church is in reality much more advantageous than is necessary.
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The government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever.
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By the removal of the unnecessary mouths, and by extracting from the farmer the full value of the farm, a greater surplus, or what is the same thing, the price of a greater surplus, was obtained for the proprietor...
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The value of money is in proportion to the quantity of the necessaries of life which it will purchase.
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The Hudson's Bay Company, before their misfortunes in the late war, had been much more fortunate than the Royal African Company.
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Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
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Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.
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In this consists the difference between the character of a miser and that of a person of exact economy and assiduity. The one is anxious about small matters for their own sake; the other attends to them only in consequence of the scheme of life which he has laid down to himself.
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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.
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III. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it.
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No fixed capital can yield any revenue but by means of a circulating capital.
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The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes.
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In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
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A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.
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The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the affect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. To complain of it, is to lament over the necessary effect and cause of the greatest public prosperity.
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In England, success in the profession of the law leads to some very great objects of ambition; and yet how few men, born to easy fortunes, have ever in this country been emminent in that profession?
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The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.
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For a very small expence the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education.
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China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.
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The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increasing either the number of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of those labourers who had before been employed.
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Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.
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The great affair, we always find, is to get money.
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I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.