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Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.

Adam Smith

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Adam Smith
Age: 67 †
Born: 1723
Born: June 16
Died: 1790
Died: July 17
Economist
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Lang Toun
Animal
Funny
Makes
Another
Doe
Exchanges
Men
Bargains
Bones
Dog

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What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?
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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.
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Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.
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The man of system is apt to be very wise in his own conceit. In the great chess board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it
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Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.
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Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
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The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be... The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough.
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I am a beau in nothing but my books.
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Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
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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.
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It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.
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The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire for it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his good always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little interest of this kind.
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As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation.
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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.
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The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition . . . is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration.
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Though the profusion of Government must undoubtedly have retarded the natural progress of England to wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it.
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Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.
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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.
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The rate of profit... is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.
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A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six he might like to have it but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it.
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