Adam Smith Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Adam Smith

  Happiness, Equality, Society

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.33

  217 Copy quote

• A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it's people.

  Adam Smith

  People, Prosperity, Economics

  79 Copy quote

• The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Watches, Firsts

  Adam Smith (2015). “The Money Game”, p.24, Open Road Media

  176 Copy quote

• 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.

  Adam Smith

  Business, Invisible Hand, Government

  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations vol. 1, bk. 1, ch. 2 (1776)

  182 Copy quote

• A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.Most government is by the rich for the rich. Government comprises a large part of the organized injustice in any society, ancient or modern.Civil government, insofar as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, and for the defence of those who have property against those who have none.

  Adam Smith

  Reality, Government, Criminals

  159 Copy quote

• By pursuing his own interest (the individual) frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

  Adam Smith

  Invisible Hand, Done, Individual

  1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk.4, ch.3.

  141 Copy quote

• Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

  Adam Smith

  Patriotic, Government, Libertarian

  Adam Smith (2012). “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, p.89, Courier Corporation

  109 Copy quote

• The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.

  Adam Smith

  Vanity, Secret, Objects

  Adam Smith (1817). “The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Or, An Essay Towards an Analysis of the Principles by which Men Naturally Judge Concerning the Conduct and Character, First of Their Neighbours, and Afterwards of Themselves : to which is Added, A Dissertation on the Origin of Languages”, p.421

  3 Copy quote

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

  Adam Smith

  Powerful, Mean, Causes

  Adam Smith (2012). “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, p.58, Courier Corporation

  30 Copy quote

• But avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property, passions much more steady in their operation, and much more universal in their influence. Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many.

  Adam Smith

  Affluence, Making Money, Rich

  Adam Smith, J.R. McCulloch (1828). “Aninquiry in to the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: With a Life of the Author, an Introductory Discourse, Notes, and Supplemental Dissertations by J.R. McCulloch”, p.190

  141 Copy quote

• The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.

  Adam Smith

  Business, Real, Men

  1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk.1, ch.5.

  111 Copy quote

• Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.

  Adam Smith

  Funny, Dog, Animal

  81 Copy quote

• Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.

  Adam Smith

  Ambition, Common, Beautiful Mind

  35 Copy quote

• Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness.

  Adam Smith

  Happiness, Cheerfulness, Habitual

  Adam Smith (2012). “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, p.39, Courier Corporation

  55 Copy quote

• The interest of [businessmen] is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ... ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined ... with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men ... who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Order, Law

  "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith, Chapter XI, Part III, Conclusion of the Chapter, (p. 292), 1776.

  91 Copy quote

• 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 wealth of the world was originally purchased.

  Adam Smith

  Money, Labour Movement, Labor Day

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.13

  33 Copy quote

• The learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.

  Adam Smith

  Ideas, Imagination, Coherence

  11 Copy quote

• All money is a matter of belief.

  Adam Smith

  Believe, Matter, Belief

  21 Copy quote

• Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.

  Adam Smith

  Complaining, Economics, All Time

  Adam Smith (2007). “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, p.350, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

  14 Copy quote

• Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to society... He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention

  Adam Smith

  Views, Hands, Invisible Hand

  Adam Smith (2017). “The Wealth of Nations (illustrated)”, p.330, Clap Publishing, LLC.

  102 Copy quote

• Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Envy, Want

  Adam Smith (1809). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.95

  102 Copy quote

• Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

  Adam Smith

  Reality, Government, Libertarian

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.299

  29 Copy quote

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

  Adam Smith

  Cities, Progress, Valleys

  Adam Smith (1978). “Powers of Mind”

  85 Copy quote

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

  Adam Smith

  Science, Flames, Enthusiasm

  The Wealth of Nations Bk V, Ch. 1

  31 Copy quote

• Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

  Adam Smith

  Fear, Vices, Excess

  27 Copy quote

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