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 SMITHAsk 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.
More Adam Smith Quotes
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Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.
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 -
An English university is a sanctuary in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices find shelter and protection after they have been . Hunted out of every corner of the world.
ADAM SMITH -
Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
ADAM SMITH -
In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.
ADAM SMITH -
All money is a matter of belief.
ADAM SMITH -
Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.
ADAM SMITH -
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.
ADAM SMITH -
A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it.
ADAM SMITH -
Defense is superior to opulence.
ADAM SMITH -
In ease of body, peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.
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 -
Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness.
ADAM SMITH