He is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
ADAM SMITHWhatever 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.
More Adam Smith Quotes
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There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.
ADAM SMITH -
Wonder and not any expectation of advantage from its discoveries, is the first principle which prompts mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature.
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 -
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
ADAM SMITH -
Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
ADAM SMITH -
Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
ADAM SMITH -
Have lots of experiments, but make sure they’re strategically focused.
ADAM SMITH -
We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
ADAM SMITH -
The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.
ADAM SMITH -
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
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 -
Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.
ADAM SMITH -
It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.
ADAM SMITH -
Labor was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
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 -
As soon as government management begins it upsets the natural equilibrium of industrial relations, and each interference only requires further bureaucratic control until the end is the tyranny of the totalitarian state.
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 -
What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.
ADAM SMITH -
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
ADAM SMITH -
Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.
ADAM SMITH