Adam Smith Quotes

It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition.

The game women play is men.

The rate of profit... is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.

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.

The division of labour was limited by the extent of the market

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 security of innocence.

I am a beau in nothing but my books.

By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound

Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty.

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

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

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

An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.

It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.

It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.

Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.

A sketch of a man facing to the right.

A true party-man hates and despises candour.

Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.

We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves.

The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of the public more than that of people of some rank and fortune.

The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally writhe and twist and balance their own bodies, as they see him do.

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

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.

It must always be remembered, however, that it is the luxuries, and not the necessary expense of the inferior ranks of people, that ought ever to be taxed.

Whatever work he does, beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.

The proprietor of stock is necessarily a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country.

Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.

Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in trade.

The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating.

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

The retinue of a grandee in China or Indostan accordingly is, by all accounts, much more numerous and splendid than that of the richest subjects of Europe.

Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor.

I have no faith in political arithmetic.

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

The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious antipathy to the sea; a superstition nearly of the same kind prevails among the Indians; and the Chinese have never excelled in foreign commerce.

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.

Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.

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

Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.

An English university is a sanctuary in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices find shelter and protection after they have been . hunted out of every corner of the world.

But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.

Man, an animal that makes bargains.

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.

The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation.

In a militia, the character of the laborer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character.

In general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labour, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition, it will always be the more so.

Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.

I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.