List of Adam Smith Quotes

Masters Are Always And Everywhere In A Sort Of Tacit, But Constant And Uniform Combination, Not To Raise The Wages Of Labor.

It May Indeed Be Doubted Whether Butchers' Meet Is Anywhere A Necessary Of Life. Grain And Other Vegetables, With The Help Of Milk, Cheese, And Butter, Or Oil Where Butter Is Not To Be Had, Afford The Most Plentiful, The Most Wholesome, The Most Nourishing, And The Most Invigorating Diet. Decency Nowhere Requires That Any Man Should Eat Butchers' Meat.

Adventure Upon All The Tickets In The Lottery, And You Lose For Certain; And The Greater The Number Of Your Tickets The Nearer Your Approach To This Certainty.

Thus The Labour Of A Manufacture Adds, Generally, To The Value Of The Materials Which He Works Upon, That Of His Own Maintenance, And Of His Masters Profits. The Labour Of A Menial Servant, On The Contrary, Adds To The Value Of Nothing.

To Hinder, Besides, The Farmer From Selling His Goods At All Times To The Best Market, Is Evidently To Sacrifice The Ordinary Laws Of Justice To An Idea Of Public Utility, To A Sort Of Reasons Of State; An Act Of Legislative Authority Which Ought To Be Exercised Only, Which Can Be Pardoned Only In Cases Of The Most Urgent Necessity.

Poor David Hume Is Dying Fast, But With More Real Cheerfulness And Good Humor And With More Real Resignation To The Necessary Course Of Things, Than Any Whining Christian Ever Dyed With Pretended Resignation To The Will Of God.

I Am Always Willing To Run Some Hazard Of Being Tedious, In Order To Be Sure That I Am Perspicuous; And, After Taking The Utmost Pains That I Can To Be Perspicuous, Some Obscurity May Still Appear To Remain Upon A Subject, In Its Own Nature Extremely Abstracted.

For A Very Small Expence The Public Can Facilitate, Can Encourage, And Can Even Impose Upon Almost The Whole Body Of The People, The Necessity Of Acquiring Those Most Essential Parts Of Education.

To Found A Great Empire For The Sole Purpose Of Raising Up A People Of Customers, May At First Sight Appear A Project Fit Only For A Nation Of Shopkeepers. It Is, However, A Project Altogether Unfit For A Nation Of Shopkeepers; But Extremely Fit For A Nation Whose Government Is Influenced By Shopkeepers.

The Retinue Of A Grandee In China Or Indostan Accordingly Is, By All Accounts, Much More Numerous And Splendid Than That Of The Richest Subjects Of Europe.

The Liberal Reward Of Labour, Therefore, As It Is The Affect Of Increasing Wealth, So It Is The Cause Of Increasing Population. To Complain Of It, Is To Lament Over The Necessary Effect And Cause Of The Greatest Public Prosperity.

China Is A Much Richer Country Than Any Part Of Europe.