black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.

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

Employment Greatness Loss Natural Profit Prosperity Trade
Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness.
ADAM SMITH

Cheerful Grace Habit Happiness
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
Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.
ADAM SMITH

Employment Fear Government Independent Instrument Man Order
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
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

Enjoy Fulfill Human Life Man Necessary Poor Rich Satisfaction
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

Active Country Greatness Production
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
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
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.
ADAM SMITH

Destroy Force Freedom
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

Administration Carry Easy Justice Low Nature Peace State Tolerance
Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.
ADAM SMITH

Desire Important Man Management Return
Labour was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.
ADAM SMITH

Gold Money Pay Price Purchase Wealth Work World
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
ADAM SMITH

Country Demand Land Love Man Natural Privacy Produce Property
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

Himself Man Necessary Work
That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.
ADAM SMITH

Chance Learning Nature Success Value

Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Adam Smith Quotes