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The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation.

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
Change
Number
Detail
Must
Generations
Persist
Theory
Observation
Numbers
Economics
Greatest
Details
Economy
Rule
Opinion
Generation
Facts
Changes
Absorb

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The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education.
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The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.
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Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor.
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China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.
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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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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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Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.
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It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.
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That a joint stock company should be able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private adventurers can come into any sort of open and fair competition with them, seems contrary to all experience.
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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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Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
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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.
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When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, over-trading becomes a general error both among great and small dealers.
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Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things.
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The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.
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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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