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Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

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
Subjects
Feared
Virtue
Regulation
Economy
Excess
Fear
Vice
Vices
Economics
Subject
Conscience
Excesses

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The emotions of the spectator will still be very apt to fall short of the violence of what is felt by the sufferer. Mankind, though naturally sympathetic, never conceive, for what has befallen another, that degree of passion which naturally animates the person principally concerned.
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Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.
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That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.
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I have no faith in political arithmetic.
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Now many such things may be done without intitling the people to rise in arms. A gross, flagrant, and palpable abuse no doubt will do it, as if they should be required to pay a tax equal to half or third of their substance.
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It must always be remembered, however, that it is the luxuries, and not the necessary expense of the inferior ranks of people, that ought ever to be taxed.
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The proprietor of stock is necessarily a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country.
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Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
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Avarice and injustice are always shortsighted, and they did not foresee how much this regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt in the long-run the real interest of the landlord.
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We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
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The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increasing either the number of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of those labourers who had before been employed.
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Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.
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There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.
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Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions.
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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.
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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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A true party-man hates and despises candour.
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Wonder... and not any expectation of advantage from its discoveries, is the first principle which prompts mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature.
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Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
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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.
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