Adam Smith Quotes

Adam Smith Quote: Corn is a necessary, silver only a superfluity..
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Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations, 1776)

Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book I, 1776)

No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations, 1776)

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

Adam Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759)

Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.

Adam Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759)

The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.

Adam Smith

The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book I, 1776)

Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book V, 1776)

The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing. 

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book II, 1776)

Adam Smith Quote: The great affair, we always find, is to get money.

The great affair, we always find, is to get money.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book IV, 1776)

Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book V, 1776)

Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book V, 1776)

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 (The Wealth of Nations - Book I, 1776)

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 (The Wealth of Nations - Book I, 1776)

One who is master of all his exercises has no aversion to measure his strength and activity with the strongest.

Adam Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759)

Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book I, 1776)

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.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book I, 1776)

Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations, 1776)

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.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book V, 1776)

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations, 1776)

Regard to our own private happiness and interest, too, appear upon many occasions very laudable principles of action.

Adam Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759)

To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.

Adam Smith

The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book I, 1776)

By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book IV, 1776)

Labour, therefore, is the only standard by which we can compare the values of different commodities at all times and at all places.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book I, 1776)

The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book I, 1776)

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.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book III, 1776)

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of 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.

Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations - Book IV, 1776)

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 (The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759)

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.

Adam Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759)

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Adam Smith Biography

Born: June 16, 1723
Died: July 17, 1790

Adam Smith was a Scottish philosopher and economist. His philosophy was mainly on social matters and he was a pioneer in political economy. He was also one of the key figures in the Scottish enlightenment.

Notable Works

The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
The Wealth of Nations (1776)

"This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts."
   Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons in 1941.

"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."
   John Weiss, in American Religion, 1871.

"On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity."
   Adam Smith, in Powers of Mind written in 1978. This is pretty obviously not the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith.

"Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse."
    Alexander Smith, in Dreamthorp, 1863.