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Poor David Hume is dying fast, but with more real cheerfulness and good humor and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things, than any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.

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
Real
Necessary
Hume
Good
Dying
Dyed
Things
Humor
Pretended
Courses
Whining
Course
Resignation
Poor
Cheerfulness
Christian
David
Ever
Fast

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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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With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.
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Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
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To hinder, besides, the farmer from selling his goods at all times to the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary laws of justice to an idea of public utility, to a sort of reasons of state an act of legislative authority which ought to be exercised only, which can be pardoned only in cases of the most urgent necessity.
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It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.
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The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.
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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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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.
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People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
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But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about.
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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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Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.
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Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.
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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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A true party-man hates and despises candour.
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The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.
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It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.
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