Wealth Of Nations Quotes - Page 2

• 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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• The man of system is apt to be very wise in his own conceit. 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

  Adam Smith

  Wise, Men, Might

  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.379

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• Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor.

  Adam Smith

  Wages, Uniforms, Economics

  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.28

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• The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.

  Adam Smith

  Division Of Labor, Skills, Dexterity

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.2

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• The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.

  Adam Smith

  Origin Of Life, Produce, Annuals

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.1

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• Every tax ought to be so 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.

  Adam Smith

  People, Pockets, Littles

  Adam Smith (2010). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.499, Cosimo, Inc.

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• 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

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• It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

  Adam Smith

  Progressive Taxation, Rich, Economics

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.355

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• The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.

  Adam Smith

  Government, Progressive Taxation, Support

  Adam Smith (1778). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.425

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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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• 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

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• 

  Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

  Milton Friedman

  Party, Pie, Liberty

  Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.31, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• And you prate of the wealth of nations, as if it were bought and sold, The wealth of nations is men, not silk and cotton and gold.

  Richard Hovey

  Men, Gold, Cotton

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• 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.

  Adam Smith

  Invisible Hand, People, Competition

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

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• It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.

  Adam Smith

  Believe, Age, Done

  Adam Smith, Laurence Dickey (1993). “Wealth of Nations (Abridged)”, p.44, Hackett Publishing

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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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• What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.

  Adam Smith

  Invisible Hand, Kingdoms, Economic

  1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk.4, ch.2.

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• The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating.

  Adam Smith

  Commodity, Natural

  Adam Smith (2016). “The Wealth of Nations: the Great Master”, p.70, VM eBooks

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• Market forces have no intrinsically moral direction, which is why, before he wrote The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Ethics should precede economics. But it doesn't have to. . . . We know this because we've seen the results of capitalism without conscience: the pollution of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat; the endangerment of workers; and the sale of dangerous products - from cars to toys to drugs. All in pursuit of ever-greater profits.

  Arianna Huffington

  Air, Water, Car

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• There is not a line in 'The Wealth of Nations' that is not still applicable to this day.

  Milton Friedman

  Lines, Wealth, Stills

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• But Adam Smith was a philosopher as well as well as an economist, famous in his time as much for his Theory of Moral Sentiments as for The Wealth of Nations. And as he understood so well, society is more than the sum of its individual parts.

  Paul Ormerod

  Philosopher, Moral, Wealth

  "The Death of Economics". Book by Paul Ormerod, 1994.

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• What is the most effective, practical way of raising the wealth of nations? What causes wealth? I have come to think that the dream of democratic socialism is inferior to the dream of democratic capitalism, and that the latter's superiority in actual practice is undeniable.

  Michael Novak

  Dream, Thinking, Practice

  Michael Novak (1991). “The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism”, p.26, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The Wealth of Nations may not be an original book, but it is unquestionably a masterpiece.

  Robert Heilbroner

  Book, May, Wealth

  Robert L. Heilbroner (1955). “The Great Economists: Their Lives and Their Conceptions of the World”

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• The world values the seer above all men, and has always done so. Nay, it values all men in proportion as they partake of the character of seers. The Elgin Marbles and a decision of John Marshall are valued for the same reason. What we feel in them is a painstaking submission to facts beyond the author's control, and to ideas imposed on him by his vision. So with Beethoven's Symphonies, with Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations - with any conceivable output of the human mind of which you approve. You love them because you say, These things were not made, they were seen.

  John Jay Chapman

  Character, Men, Ideas

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• If the machinery for distribution in the present economic system of the world is incapable of properly distributing the productive wealth of nations, then that system is false and must be altered.

  Gregor Strasser

  World, Wealth, Economic

  "The Mind and Face of Nazi Germany" by Nagendranath Gangulee, (p. 165), 1942.

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