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Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition.
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
Great
Leading
Men
Instruments
Ambition
Speech
Altogether
Economy
Directing
Desire
Superiority
Seems
Peculiar
Real
Instrument
More quotes by Adam Smith
Every man lives by exchanging.
Adam Smith
A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, unites in his own person the three different characters, of landlord, farmer, and labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the first, the profit of the second, and the wages of the third.
Adam Smith
Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
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
The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.
Adam Smith
All money is a matter of belief.
Adam Smith
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
Adam Smith
The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.
Adam Smith
Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State.
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.
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
The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money.
Adam Smith
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.
Adam Smith
Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.
Adam Smith
The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of the public more than that of people of some rank and fortune.
Adam Smith
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.
Adam Smith
Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
Adam Smith
It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.
Adam Smith
It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.
Adam Smith
I have no faith in political arithmetic.
Adam Smith
