Adam Smith Quotes About Wealth

Quotes about: Wealth

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life.

  Adam Smith

  Money, Men, Rich Or Poor

  Adam Smith (2010). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.36, Cosimo, Inc.

• It is not the actual greatness of national wealth, but its continual increase, which occasions a rise in the wages of labour. It is not, accordingly, in the richest countries, but in the most thriving, or in those which are growing rich the fastest, that the wages of labour are highest. England is certainly, in the present times, a much richer country than any part of North America. The wages of labour, however, are much higher in North America than in any part of England.

  Adam Smith

  Country, Greatness, America

  Adam Smith, Laurence Dickey (1993). “Wealth of Nations (Abridged)”, p.35, Hackett Publishing

• That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.

  Adam Smith

  Respect, Greatness, Age

  Adam Smith (1869). “Essays On, I. Moral Sentiments: II. Astronomical Inquiries; III. Formation of Languages; IV. History of Ancient Physics; V. Ancient Logic and Metaphysicis; VI. The Imitative Arts; VII. Music, Dancing, Poetry; VIII. The External Senses; IX. English and Italian Verses”, p.57

• 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

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

  Adam Smith

  Labour Movement, Labor Day, Firsts

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

• It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing. 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.

  Adam Smith

  Doubt, Gold, Doe

  Adam Smith (1843). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations With a Life of the Author: Also a View of the Doctrine of Smith, Compared with that of the French Economists, with a Method of Facilitating the Study of His Works, from the French of M. Jariner”, p.177

• In public, as well as in private expences, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly.

  Adam Smith

  Apology, May, Wealth

  Adam Smith, William Playfair (1811). “An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations”, p.13

• 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.

  Adam Smith

  Population, Complaining, Rewards

  Adam Smith (2010). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.85, Cosimo, Inc.

• Though the profusion of Government must undoubtedly have retarded the natural progress of England to wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it.

  Adam Smith

  Government, Progress, Able

  Adam Smith (1843). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations With a Life of the Author: Also a View of the Doctrine of Smith, Compared with that of the French Economists, with a Method of Facilitating the Study of His Works, from the French of M. Jariner”, p.142

• The liberal reward of labor, therefore, as it is the necessary effect, so it is the natural symptom of increasing national wealth. The scanty maintenance of the laboring poor, on the other hand, is the natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their starving condition that they going backwards fast.

  Adam Smith

  Hands, Rewards, Maintenance

  Adam Smith, Bruce Mazlish (2003). “The Wealth of Nations: Representative Selections”, p.74, Courier Corporation

• Both ground- rents and the ordinary rent of land are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. The annual produce of the land and labour of the society, the real wealth and revenue of the great body of the people, might be the same after such a tax as before. Ground-rents, and the ordinary rent of land are, therefore, perhaps the species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them.

  Adam Smith

  Real, Land, People

  Adam Smith (1869). “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume 2”, p.437

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