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
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.
More Adam Smith Quotes
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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 -
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 -
Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
ADAM SMITH -
Man, an animal that makes bargains.
ADAM SMITH -
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
ADAM SMITH -
Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.
ADAM SMITH -
Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.
ADAM SMITH -
An English university is a sanctuary in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices find shelter and protection after they have been . Hunted out of every corner of the world.
ADAM SMITH -
I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.
ADAM SMITH -
In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
ADAM SMITH -
The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.
ADAM SMITH -
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
ADAM SMITH -
The learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.
ADAM SMITH -
Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
ADAM SMITH -
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 -
In a militia, the character of the laborer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character.
ADAM SMITH