By pursuing his own interest (the individual) frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
ADAM SMITHIt 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.
More Adam Smith Quotes
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Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.
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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 -
Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
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 -
Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.
ADAM SMITH -
All money is a matter of belief.
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 -
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 -
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 -
It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.
ADAM SMITH -
Every man lives by exchanging.
ADAM SMITH -
That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.
ADAM SMITH -
I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
ADAM SMITH -
Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.
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