Adam Smith Quotes About Liberty

Quotes about: Liberty

• 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)

• 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.

  Adam Smith

  Law, Justice, People

  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations vol. 1, bk. 1, ch. 10 (1776)

• It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from 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. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens.

  Adam Smith

  Self, Humanity, Liberty

  Adam Smith (1817). “An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations0: With a life of the author : Also a view of the doctrine of Smith, compared with that of the french economists ...”, p.19

• There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.

  Adam Smith

  Art, Government, People

  'Wealth of Nations' (1776)

• Are you in earnest resolved never to barter your liberty for the lordly servitude of a court, but to live free, fearless, and independent? There seems to be one way to continue in that virtuous resolution; and perhaps but one. Never enter the place from whence so few have been able to return; never come within the circle of ambition; nor ever bring yourself into comparison with those masters of the earth who have already engrossed the attention of half mankind before you.

  Adam Smith

  Ambition, Independent, Circles

  Adam Smith, Robert L. Heilbroner, Laurence J. Malone (1987). “The Essential Adam Smith”, p.85, W. W. Norton & Company

• 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.

  Adam Smith

  Government, Liberty, Pay

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.362

• Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. 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

  Hands, Invisible Hand, Liberty

  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations vol. 2, bk. 4, ch. 2 (1776) See Adam Smith 1

• The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, capable not only of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting 100 impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.

  Adam Smith

  Powerful, Law, Effort

• Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.

  Adam Smith

  Government, Liberty, Citizens

  Adam Smith, James R. Otteson (2004). “Adam Smith: Selected Philosophical Writings”, p.100, Imprint Academic

• Such regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respect a violation of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments; of the most free, as well as or the most despotical. The obligation of building party walls, in order to prevent the communication of fire, is a violation of natural liberty, exactly of the same kind with the regulations of the banking trade which are here proposed.

  Adam Smith

  Wall, Communication, Party

  Adam Smith (1801). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.323

• To subject every private family to the odious visits and examination of the tax-gatherers ... would be altogether inconsistent with liberty.

  Adam Smith

  Liberty, Would Be, Examination

  Adam Smith, Dugald Stewart (1843). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.405

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