Adam Smith Quotes - Page 6

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• In a militia, the character of the laborer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character.

  Adam Smith

  Military, Character, Army

  Adam Smith (1801). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.322

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• Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition.

  Adam Smith

  Real, Ambition, Men

  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.550

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• Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate differences between masters and their workmen, 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.

  Adam Smith

  Differences, Favors, Regulation

  Adam Smith (2016). “The Wealth of Nations: the Great Master”, p.167, VM eBooks

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• Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.

  Adam Smith

  Nature, Hate, Justice

  Adam Smith (1948). “Adam Smith's moral and political philosophy”

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• The ancient 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.

  Adam Smith

  Sea, Chinese, Superstitions

  Adam Smith (1869). “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume 1”, p.372

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• Problems worthy of attacks, prove their worth by hitting back

  Adam Smith

  Hitting, Problem, Economics

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• We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations [that is, unions or colluding organizations] of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual price.

  Adam Smith

  Organization, Ignorant, World

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• A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.

  Adam Smith

  Earth, Generations, Absurd

  Adam Smith (1964). “Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms”

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• 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

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• I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.

  Adam Smith

  Mean, Political, Arithmetic

  Adam Smith (2007). “The Wealth of Nations: An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: With an introduction by Jonathan B. Wight, University of Richmond”, p.474, Harriman House Limited

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• 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

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• A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, unites in his own person the three different characters, of landlord, farmer, and labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the first, the profit of the second, and the wages of the third.

  Adam Smith

  Character, Garden, Hands

  Adam Smith (1778). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.65

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• 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

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• Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.

  Adam Smith

  Mean, Animal, Men

  Adam Smith, Dugald Stewart (1843). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.5

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• The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. 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

  Real, Mean, Men

  Adam, Smith (2016). “The Wealth of Nations”, p.24, Aegitas

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• Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did and never can carry us beyond our own persons, and it is by the imagination only that we form any conception of what are his sensations...His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have this adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels.

  Adam Smith

  Brother, Home, Agony

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• In this consists the difference between the character of a miser and that of a person of exact economy and assiduity. The one is anxious about small matters for their own sake; the other attends to them only in consequence of the scheme of life which he has laid down to himself.

  Adam Smith

  Character, Differences, Matter

  Adam Smith (1853). “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.246

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• 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.

  Adam Smith

  Order, Numbers, People

  "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith, (Introduction and Plan of the Work, p. 2), 1776.

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• Ask any rich man of common prudence to which of the two sorts of people he has lent the greater part of his stock, to those who, he thinks, will employ it profitably, or to those who will spend it idly, and he will laugh at you for proposing the question.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Thinking, Two

  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.144

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• 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.

  Adam Smith

  Character, Division Of Labor, Differences

  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.7

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• The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of the public more than that of people of some rank and fortune.

  Adam Smith

  People, Attention, Common

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.328

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• The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation.

  Adam Smith

  Change, Numbers, Facts

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• It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.

  Adam Smith

  Real, Improvement, Natural

  Adam Smith (2016). “The Wealth of Nations: the Great Master”, p.283, VM eBooks

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• A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Race, Would Be

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.28

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• This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Numbers, People

  Adam Smith (2016). “The Wealth of Nations: the Great Master”, p.16, VM eBooks

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