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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.
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
Example
Customs
Differences
Arise
Education
Philosopher
Common
Street
Nature
Characters
Seems
Habit
Dissimilar
Character
Streets
Porter
Much
Difference
Custom
More quotes by Adam Smith
By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound
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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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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.
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I am a beau in nothing but my books.
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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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The proprietor of stock is necessarily a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country.
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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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The machines that are first invented to perform any particular movement are always the most complex, and succeeding artists generally discover that, with fewer wheels, with fewer principles of motion, than had originally been employed, the same effects may be more easily produced. The first systems, in the same manner, are always the most complex.
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In this consists the difference between the character of a miser and that of a person of exact economy and assiduity. The one is anxious about small matters for their own sake the other attends to them only in consequence of the scheme of life which he has laid down to himself.
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When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than before.
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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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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.
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The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
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Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
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The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating.
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This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.
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I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.
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Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty.
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Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.
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