Adam Smith

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Adam Smith (16 June 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish born economist and philosopher.

Contents

[edit] Sourced

  • Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit.

[edit] The Wealth of Nations (1776)

References are to book, chapter, subdivisions (in some cases), and paragraph, as given in the Glasgow edition (see below). Other editions include book and chapter only. Page numbers are included as a locational help.


  • Among civilized and thriving nations, on the contrary, though a great number of people do no labor at all, many of whom consume the produce of ten times, frequently of a hundred times more labour than the greater part of those who work; yet the produce of the whole labour of the society is so great,that all are often abundantly supplied, and a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order,if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and conveniencies of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire.
    • Introduction And Plan Of The Work, pg.2

[edit] BOOK I

  • The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greatest part of skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
    • Book I, Chapter I, pg.7
  • Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty thousand pins a day.
    • Book I, Chapter I, pg.9
  • Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.
    • Book I, Chapter II, pg.14 (perhaps an off the run bone?)
  • The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education.
    • Book I, Chapter II, pg.17
  • By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound,
    • Book I, Chapter II, pg.17
  • But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. 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. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.
    • Book I, Chapter II, pg.19
  • For in every country of the world, I believe, the avarice and injustice of princes and sovereign states, abusing the confidence of their subjects, have by degrees diminished the real quantity of metal, which had been originally contained in their coins.
    • Book I, Chapter IV, pg.34
  • 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; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command.
    • Book I, Chapter V, pg.38
  • In reality, during the continuance of any one regulated proportion, between the respective values of the different values of the different metals in the coin, the value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin.
    • Book I, Chapter V, pg.50
  • The value which the workmen add to the materials, therefore, resolves itself in this case into two parts, of which the one pays their wages, the other the profits of the employer upon the whole stock of materials and wages which he advanced.
    • Book I, Chapter VI, pg.58 (Adam Smith discovered surplus labour ?!)
  • 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 sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
    • Book I, Chapter VI, pg.60
  • A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it.
    • Book I, Chapter VII, pg.67
  • Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in trade.
    • Book I, Chapter VII, pg.72
  • 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.
    • Book I, Chapter VIII, pg.80
  • We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of the workman. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.
    • Book I, Chapter VIII, pg.80
  • A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him.
    • Book I, Chapter VIII, pg.81
  • China has been long one of the richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, and most populous countries in the world. It seems, however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo, who visited it more than five hundred years ago, describes its cultivation, industry, and populousness, almost in the same terms in which they are described by travellers in the present times.
    • Book I, Chapter VIII, pg.86
  • The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that of the most beggarly nations of Europe. In the neighbourhood of Canton many hundred, it is commonly said, many thousand families have no habitation on the land, but live constantly in little fishing boats upon the rivers and the canals.the subsistence which they find there is so scanty that they are eager to fish up the nastiest garbage thrown overboard from any European ship. Any carrion, the carcase of a dead dog or cat, for example, though half putrid and stinking, is as welcome to them as the most wholesome food to the people of other countries.
    • Book I, Chapter VIII, pg.86
  • Marriage is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children, but by the liberty of destroying them.
    • Book I, Chapter VIII, pg.87
  • Oatmeal indeed supplies the common people of Scotland with the greatest and best part of their food, which is in general much inferior to that of their neighbours of the same rank in England.
    • Book I, Chapter VIII, pg.91 (Oatmeal in England makes for great horses, in Scotland Great Men...)
  • No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.
    • Book I, Chapter VIII, pg.94
  • The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the affect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. To complain of it, is to lament over the necessary effect and cause of the greatest public prosperity.
    • Book I, Chapter VII, pg.97
  • A great stock, though with small profits, generally increases faster than a small stock with great profits. Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have a little, it is often easier to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little.
    • Book I, Chapter IX, pg.111
  • Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.
    • Book I, Chapter IX, pg.117
  • The establishment of any new manufacture, of any new branch of commerce, or any new practice in agriculture, is always a speculation, from which the projector promises himself extraordinary profits. These profits sometimes are very great, and sometimes, more frequently, perhaps, they are quite otherwise; but in general they bear no regular proportion to those of other older trades in the neighbourhood. If the project succeeds, they are commonly at first very high. When the trade or practice becomes thoroughly established and well known, the competition reduces them to the level of other trades.
  • People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.
    • Book I, Chapter X, Part II, pg.152
  • the competition of the poor takes away from the reward of the rich.
    • Book I, Chapter X, Part II, pg.154
  • In England, and in all Roman Catholic countries, the lottery of the church is in reality much more advantageous then is necessary.
    • Book I, Chapter X, Part II, pg.155
  • Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workman,its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favor of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favor of the masters.
    • Book I, Chapter x, Part II, pg.168
  • Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with with those of the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that the greatest of all improvements.
    • Book I, Chapter XI, Part I, pg.174
  • With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.
  • China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.
    • Book I, Chapter XI, Part III, (First Period) pg.221
  • Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.
    • Book I, Chapter XI, Part III, (First Period) pg.223
  • 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.
    • Book I, Chapter XI, Part III, Third Period, pg.240
  • It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.
    • Book I, Chapter XI, Part III, (Conclusion..) pg.282
  • The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention.
    • Book I, Chapter XI, Part III, Conclusion of the Chapter, pg.292

[edit] BOOK II

  • His capital is continually going from him in one shape, and returning to him in another,and it is only by means of such circulation, or successive exchanges, that it can yield him any profit. Such capitals, therefore, may very properly be called circulating capitals.
    • Book II, Chapter I, pg. 305
  • A man must be perfectly crazy who, where there is tolerable security, does not employ all the stock which he commands,...
  • Thus the labour of a manufacture adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his masters profits. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing.
    • Book II, Chapter III, pg.364 (see Proverbs 14-23 KJV)
  • It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.
    • Book II, Chapter III, pg.381
  • The antient 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.
    • Book II, Chapter V, pg.402

[edit] BOOK III

  • It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.
    • Book III, Chapter IV, pg.420
  • But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about.
    • Book III, Chapter IV, pg.448
  • By the removal of the unnecessary mouths, and by extracting from the farmer the full value of the farm, a greater surplus, or what is the same thing, the price of a greater surplus, was obtained for the proprietor...
  • A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.
    • Book III, Chapter IV, pg.456
  • All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
    • Book III, Chapter IV, pg.448

[edit] BOOK IV

  • POLITICAL economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first,to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign.
    • Book IV, Introduction, pg.459
  • The great affair, we always find, is to get money.
    • Book IV, Chapter I, pg.460
  • When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, over-trading becomes a general error both among great and small dealers.
    • Book IV, Chapter I, pg.469
  • Money no doubt, makes always a part of the national capital; but it has already been shown that it generally makes but a small part, and always the most unprofitable part of it.
    • Book IV, Chapter I, pg.470
  • Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money,but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.
    • Book IV, Chapter I, pg.471
  • It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.
    • Book IV, Chapter I, pg.471
  • We do not, however, reckon that trade disadvantageous which consists in the exchange of the hard-ware of England for the wines of France;and yet hard-ware is a very durable commodity,and were it not for this continual exportation, might too be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible augmentation of the pots and pans of the country.But it readily occurs that the number of such utensils is in every country necessarily limited by the use which there is for them;that it would be absurd to have more pots and pans than were necessary for cooking the victuals usually consumed there;and that if the quantity of victuals were to increase, the number of pots and pans would readily increase along with it, apart of the increased quantity of victuals being employed in purchasing them, or in maintaining an additional number of workman whose business it was to make them.
    • Book IV, Chapter I, pg.471
  • The importation of gold and silver is not the principal, much less the sole benefit which a nation derives from its foreign trade.
    • Book IV, Chapter I, pg.479
  • The commodities of Europe were almost all new to America, and many of those of America were new to Europe. A new set of exchanges, therefore, began..and which should naturally have proved as advantageous to the new, as it certainly did to the old continent. The savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of those unfortunate countries.
    • Book IV, Chapter I, pg.481
  • 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 his view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society.
    • Book IV, Chapter II, pg.486
  • As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, 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 no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he 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. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.
    • Book IV, Chapter II, pg.489
  • What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.
    • Book IV, Chapter II, pg.490
  • To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should never be established in it.
    • Book IV, Chapter II, pg.505
  • The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.
    • Book IV, Chapter III, Part II, pg.531
  • Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity:...
    • Book IV, Chapter III, Part II, pg.534
  • In public, as well as in private expences, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly.
    • Book IV, Chapter V, pg.563
  • I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.
    • Book IV, Chapter V, pg.577
  • Of all those expensive and uncertain projects, however, which bring bankruptcy upon the greater part of the people who engage in in them, there is none perhaps more perfectly ruinous then the search after new silver and gold mines. It is perhaps the most disadvantageous lottery in the world, or the one in which the gain of those who draw the prizes bears the least proportion to the loss of those who draw the blanks: for though the prizes are few and the blanks are many, the common price of a ticket is the whole fortune of a very rich man.
    • Book IV, Chapter VII, Part First, pg.610
  • To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.
    • Book IV, Chapter VII, Part Third, pg.667
  • Monopoly of one kind or another, indeed, seems to be the sole engine of the mercantile system.
    • Book IV, Chapter VII, Part Third, pg.684
  • Such taxes [upon the necessaries of life], when they have grown up to a certain height, are a curse equal to the barrenness of the earth and the inclemency of the heavens; and yet it is in the richest and most industrious countries that they have been most generally imposed. No other countries could support so great a disorder.
    • IV.ii.36
  • 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.
    • Book IV, Chapter VIII, pg.719
  • It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interests has been so carefully attended to; and among this later class our merchants and manufactures have been by far the principal architects. In the mercantile regulations, which have been taken notice of in this chapter, the interest of our manufacturers has been most peculiarly attended to;and the interest, not so much of the consumers, as that of some other sets of producers, has been sacrificed to it.
    • Book IV, Chapter VIII, pg.721

[edit] BOOK V

  • Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part II, pg.770
  • Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part II, 775
  • Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part II, pg.773
  • Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attornies, at least, must always be paid by the parties; and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse then they actually perform it.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part II, pg.778
  • The tolls for the maintenance of a high road, cannot with any safety be made the property of private persons.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part III, Article I, pg.786
  • That a joint stock company should be able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private adventurers can come into any sort of open and fair competition with them, seems contrary to all experience.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part III, Article I, pg.810
  • Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from these rules, in consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part III, pg.820
  • The trade of insurance gives great security to the fortunes of private people, and by dividing among a great many that loss which would ruin an individual, makes it fall light and easy upon the whole society.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part III, pg.821
  • In England, success in the profession of the law leads to some very great objects of ambition; and yet how few men, born to easy fortunes, have ever in this country been emminent in that profession?
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part III, pg.824
  • The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of the public more then that of people of some rank and fortune.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part III, pg.845
  • 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.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part III, Article II
  • Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part III, Article III, pg.874
  • 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.
    • Book V, Chapter I, Part IV, Conclusion, pg.881
  • Lands for the purposes of pleasure and magnificence, parks, gardens, public walks, &c. possessions which are every where considered as causes of expence, not as sources of revenue, seem to be the only lands which, in a great and civilized monarchy, ought to belong the crown.
    • Book V, Chapter II, Part I, pg.891
  • I. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities, that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
    • Book V, Chapter II, Part II, pg.892
  • II. The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary.
    • Book V, Chapter II, Part II, pg.892
  • III. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it.
    • Book V, Chapter II Part II, pg.893
  • IV. Every tax ought to be contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state.
    • Book V, Chapter II, Part II, pg.893
  • The evident justice and utility of the foregoing maxims have recommended them more or less to the attention of all nations.
    • Book V, Chapter II, Part II, pg. 894
  • But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.
    • Book V, Chapter II, Part II, pg.896
  • It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expence, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.
    • Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Article I, pg.911
  • Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.
    • Book V, Chapter II, Part II, pg.927
  • All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.
    • Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Appendix to Articles I and II, pg.935
  • If a workman can conveniently spare those three halfpence, he buys a pot of porter. If he cannot, he contents himself with a pint, and, as a penny saved is a penny got, he thus gains a farthing by his temperance.
    • Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Article IV, pg.951
  • That of beaver skins, of beaver wool, and of gum Senega, has been subjected to higher duties; Great Britain, by the conquest of Canada and Senegal, having got almost the monopoly of those commodities.
    • Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Article IV, pg.954-955
  • But bounty and hospitality very seldom lead to extravagance; though vanity almost always does.
    • Book V, Chapter III, Part V, pg.987
  • When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid. The liberation of the public revenue,if it has ever been brought about at all, has always been brought about by bankruptcy; sometimes by an avowed one, but always by a real one, though frequently by a pretend payment.
    • Book V, Chapter III, Part V, pg.1012
  • The rulers of Great Britain have, for more than a century past, amused the people with the imagination that they possessed a great empire on the west side of the Atlantic. This empire, however, has hitherto existed in imagination only.
    • Book V, Chapter III, Part V, pg.1032 (Last Page)


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[edit] The Theory of Moral Sentiments

[edit] Systems and societies

  • The man of system, on the contrary, 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. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.

[edit] Justice

  • The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.
  • Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

[edit] Far-away disasters

  • Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own.

[edit] Selflessness

  • 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.

[edit] Individualism

  • Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.

[edit] Materialism

  • How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniences. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the clothes of other people, in order to carry a greater number. They walk about loaded with a multitude of baubles, in weight and sometimes in value not inferior to an ordinary Jew's-box, some of which may sometimes be of some little use, but all of which might at all times be very well spared, and of which the whole utility is certainly not worth the fatigue of bearing the burden.

[edit] Africa and Africans

  • There is not a negro from the coast of Africa who does not, in this respect, possess a degree of magnanimity which the soul of his sordid master is too often scarce capable of conceiving. Fortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over mankind, than when she subjected those nations of heroes to the refuse of the jails of Europe, to wretches who possess the virtues neither of the countries which they come from, nor of those which they go to, and whose levity, brutality, and baseness, so justly expose them to the contempt of the vanquished.

[edit] Rich & Poor

  • This disposition to admire, and almost to worship , the rich and powerful, and to despise , or , at least neglect persons of poor and mean conditions, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.

[edit] Attributed

  • Lotteries are a tax on ignorance [1]


[edit] Quotes About Adam Smith

[edit] Sources

Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Ed. R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner. 2 vols. Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith 2. Oxford U. Press, 1976.

[edit] External links

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[edit] References

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