The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.
ADAM SMITH
I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.
More Adam Smith Quotes
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The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.
ADAM SMITH -
It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense. They are themselves, always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.
ADAM SMITH -
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 SMITH -
All money is a matter of belief.
ADAM SMITH -
The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.
ADAM SMITH -
That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.
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 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 rate of profit is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.
ADAM SMITH -
In 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.
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 -
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 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 -
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 -
Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.
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