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 SMITHThe first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.
More Adam Smith Quotes
-
-
The division of labour was limited by the extent of the market.
ADAM SMITH -
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.
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 -
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 -
I am a beau in nothing but my books.
ADAM SMITH -
Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
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 -
Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.
ADAM SMITH -
We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
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 -
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 -
Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this – no dog exchanges bones with another.
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 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 -
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