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 SMITHHappiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
More Adam Smith Quotes
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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 -
Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.
ADAM SMITH -
It must always be remembered, however, that it is the luxuries, and not the necessary expense of the inferior ranks of people, that ought ever to be taxed.
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 game women play is men.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.
ADAM SMITH -
The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
ADAM SMITH -
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.
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 -
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 -
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 -
Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
ADAM SMITH







