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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.
Adam Smith
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Adam Smith
Age: 67 †
Born: 1723
Born: June 16
Died: 1790
Died: July 17
Economist
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More quotes by Adam Smith
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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Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.
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Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.
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A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it's people.
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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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The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.
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Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
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Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from those rules, is consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it.
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To subject every private family to the odious visits and examination of the tax-gatherers ... would be altogether inconsistent with liberty.
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In public, as well as in private expences, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly.
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I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
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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
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.
Adam Smith
Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.
Adam Smith
But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced, but in so cold a soil, and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies.
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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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The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, capable not only of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting 100 impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.
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We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
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Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.
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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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