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 SMITHMercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
More Adam Smith Quotes
-
-
The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation.
ADAM SMITH -
It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
ADAM SMITH -
Labor was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things.
ADAM SMITH -
It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.
ADAM SMITH -
With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
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 -
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.
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 -
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 -
Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
The proprietor of stock is necessarily a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country.
ADAM SMITH