Quote

Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from those rules, is consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it.

Adam Smith

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Adam Smith
Age: 67 †
Born: 1723
Born: June 16
Died: 1790
Died: July 17
Economist
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Lang Toun
Upon
Trade
Occasions
Banking
May
Capable
Extremely
Attempts
Always
Principles
Appear
Reduced
Dangerous
Gain
Speculation
Almost
Gains
Occasion
Abstruse
Company
Consequence
Somewhat
Depart
Practice
Extraordinary
Strict
Flattering
Though
Rules
Frequently
Fatal

More quotes by Adam Smith

Image
I am always willing to run some hazard of being tedious, in order to be sure that I am perspicuous and, after taking the utmost pains that I can to be perspicuous, some obscurity may still appear to remain upon a subject, in its own nature extremely abstracted.
Adam Smith
Image
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.
Adam Smith
Image
The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition . . . is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration.
Adam Smith
Image
The emotions of the spectator will still be very apt to fall short of the violence of what is felt by the sufferer. Mankind, though naturally sympathetic, never conceive, for what has befallen another, that degree of passion which naturally animates the person principally concerned.
Adam Smith
Image
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.
Adam Smith
Image
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
Adam Smith
Image
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.
Adam Smith
Image
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
Image
Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attornies, at least, must always be paid by the parties and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they actually perform it.
Adam Smith
Image
The proprietor of stock is necessarily a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country.
Adam Smith
Image
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
Adam Smith
Image
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
Image
To feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature.
Adam Smith
Image
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
Image
As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation.
Adam Smith
Image
Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
Adam Smith
Image
The principle which prompts to save is the desire of bettering our conditiona desire which?comes with us from the womb and never leaves us till we go into the grave.
Adam Smith
Image
All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
Adam Smith
Image
Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor.
Adam Smith
Image
Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
Adam Smith