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Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

Adam Smith

Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
ADAM SMITH

Dignity Fortune Man Moral Small
Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.
ADAM SMITH

Animal Born Man Natural Science
The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.
ADAM SMITH

Fair Perfection Right See World
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
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
Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.
ADAM SMITH

Difference Food Necessary Worth
A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.
ADAM SMITH

Citizenship Country Necessary Property Trade
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
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
Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.
ADAM SMITH

Defense Guard Hate Innocence Justice Nature Safety Security
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
It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.
ADAM SMITH

Injustice Price Profit Society
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
We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
ADAM SMITH

Philosophy Respect
Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness.
ADAM SMITH

Cheerful Grace Habit Happiness
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
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.
ADAM SMITH

Destroy Force Freedom
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

Corruption Emotion Greatness Moral Ourselves Person Poor Powerful Rich Worship
All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
ADAM SMITH

Age Kind Man Master Ourselves People World
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

Evidence Exception Fortune Happiness Himself Man Nature Necessary Principle See Selfish
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 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

Demand Man Market Poor Product Satisfaction
Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.
ADAM SMITH

Complaint Power Time Yourself
Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.
ADAM SMITH

Desire Love Man Nature Object
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

Customer Discipline Employment Exercise Fear Lose Man Mistake Reality Work
The division of labour was limited by the extent of the market.
ADAM SMITH

Limitation Market Price
Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
ADAM SMITH

Beggar Choice Citizenship Independent

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

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Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

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