Adam Smith

“Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.”

— Adam Smith

“of their passions in the same object at that particular time.”

— Adam Smith

A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.

— Adam Smith

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.

— Adam Smith

All jobs are created in direct proportion to the amount of capital employed.

— Adam Smith

That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.

— Adam Smith

The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.

— Adam Smith

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

— Adam Smith

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.

— Adam Smith

Sugar, rum and tobacco are commodities which are nowhere necessaries of life, which are become objects of almost universal consumption, and which…

— Adam Smith

The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human…

— Adam Smith

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their…

— Adam Smith

Avarice and injustice are always shortsighted, and they did not foresee how much this regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt in…

— Adam Smith

Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.

— Adam Smith

When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of…

— Adam Smith

The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious antipathy to the sea; a superstition nearly of the same kind prevails among the Indians; and…

— Adam Smith

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their…

— Adam Smith

The cheapness of wine seems to be a cause, not of drunkenness, but of sobriety. ...People are seldom guilty of excess in…

— Adam Smith

That a joint stock company should be able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private adventurers can come…

— Adam Smith

Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon…

— Adam Smith

Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To…

— Adam Smith

“Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest…

— Adam Smith

The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people's money than of their own, it cannot well be…

— Adam Smith

To hinder, besides, the farmer from selling his goods at all times to the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary…

— Adam Smith

Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote…

— Adam Smith

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only…

— Adam Smith

This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are…

— Adam Smith

“Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature of which no further account can be given; or whether,…

— Adam Smith

“The produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly that number of inhabitants which it is capable of maintaining. The rich…

— Adam Smith

Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his…

— Adam Smith

A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.Most government is by the rich…

— Adam Smith

“must necessarily be small; and those employed in every different branch of the work can often be collected into the same workhouse,…

— Adam Smith

“How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not…

— Adam Smith

This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.

— Adam Smith

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

— Adam Smith

China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.

— Adam Smith

It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.

— Adam Smith

Have lots of experiments, but make sure they're strategically focused.

— Adam Smith

All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.

— Adam Smith

Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things.

— Adam Smith