Adam Smith Quotes

56 quotes in 896 categories

• The cheapness of wine seems to be a cause, not of drunkenness, but of sobriety. ...People are seldom guilty of excess in what is their…
• The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking,…
• 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…
• No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
• To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.
• The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.
• Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but…
• Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.
• 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…
• Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
• The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of…
• All money is a matter of belief.
• On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.
• Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as…
• Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
• Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable…
• No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
• With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.
• Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the…
• What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

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