It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.
ADAM SMITHIn general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labour, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition, it will always be the more so.
More Adam Smith Quotes
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The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money.
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Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
Have lots of experiments, but make sure they’re strategically focused.
ADAM SMITH -
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
ADAM SMITH -
The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be. The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough.
ADAM SMITH -
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 interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.
ADAM SMITH -
Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.
ADAM SMITH -
He is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
ADAM SMITH -
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.
ADAM SMITH -
Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?
ADAM SMITH -
Every man lives by exchanging.
ADAM SMITH -
To feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature.
ADAM SMITH -
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
ADAM SMITH -
We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
Labor was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things.
ADAM SMITH -
Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
ADAM SMITH -
Whatever work he does, beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.
ADAM SMITH -
Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.
ADAM SMITH -
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