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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

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

Cost Man Price Reality Trouble
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

Beyond Himself Maintain Violence Work
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

Animal Man Race
Man, an animal that makes bargains.
ADAM SMITH

Animal Man One Liner
When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than before.
ADAM SMITH

Employment Greatness Loss Natural Profit Prosperity Trade
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

Expectation Food Interest Job Ourselves Regard
It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.
ADAM SMITH

Desire Man Money Power
It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.
ADAM SMITH

Affect Improvement Manufacture Natural Price Reality
Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.
ADAM SMITH

Animal Born Man Natural Science
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

Fools Generation Money Problem Reward Save Work
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

Beginning Control Destruction End Government Management Nature Relationship
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

Consience Happiness Health Man Money
The division of labour was limited by the extent of the market.
ADAM SMITH

Limitation Market Price
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
ADAM SMITH

Conversation End Happiness Leaving People Price Togetherness Trade
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

Economy Greatness King People Pretend Privacy Society
A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it’s people.
ADAM SMITH

Children Material Nation People Prosperity Wealth

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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