“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.”

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.

A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it’s people.

Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.

The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.

What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

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.

The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.

A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, unites in his own person the three different characters, of landlord, farmer, and labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the first, the profit of the second, and the wages of the third.

The proprietor of stock is necessarily a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country.

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.

Have lots of experiments, but make sure they’re strategically focused.

Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.

Man, an animal that makes bargains.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

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.

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.