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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
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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
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Outside
Watches
Watch
Observer
Steps
Observers
Firsts
Thyself
First
Reactions
Thing
Economics
Men
Step
More quotes by Adam Smith
By pursuing his own interest (the individual) frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
Adam Smith
Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.
Adam Smith
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.
Adam Smith
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
Adam Smith
With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.
Adam Smith
That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.
Adam Smith
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.
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
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
Adam Smith
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.
Adam Smith
Though the profusion of Government must undoubtedly have retarded the natural progress of England to wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it.
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
Capitals are increased by parsimony, and diminished by prodigalityand misconduct. By what a frugal man annually saves he not onlyaffords maintenance to an additional number of productive hands?but?he establishes as it were a perpetual fund for the maintenance of an equal number in all times to come.
Adam Smith
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
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.
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
Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with with those of the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that the greatest of all improvements.
Adam Smith
There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.
Adam Smith
An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.
Adam Smith
Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
Adam Smith
