Adam Smith Quotes

“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 own interest.”

“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.”

“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 animals.”

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

“Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased.”

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”

“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 it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.”

“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 administration of justice.”

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

“What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?”

“The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.”

“To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.”

“Hatred and anger are the greatest poison to the happiness of a good mind.”

“Society and conversation are the most powerful remedies for restoring the mind to its tranquillity, if, at any time, it has unfortunately lost it.”

“The man of system is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it.”

“The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another.”

“How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility?”

“In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.”

“With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.”

“This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise or neglect persons of poor and mean condition, is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”

“The man who esteems himself as he ought, and no more than he ought, seldom fails to obtain from other people all the esteem that he himself thinks due.”

“The virtue of frugality lies in a middle between avarice and profusion.”

“Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your reason by my reason, of your love by my love.”

“When the happiness or misery of others depends in any respect upon our conduct, we dare not, as self-love might suggest to us, prefer the interest of one to that of many.”

“Defence is of much more importance than opulence.”