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When we have read a book or poem so often that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by ourselves, we can still take pleasure in reading it to a companion. To him it has all the graces of novelty.

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
Book
Grace
Take
Pleasure
Reading
Graces
Read
Novelty
Often
Amusement
Stills
Companion
Still
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An English university is a sanctuary in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices find shelter and protection after they have been . hunted out of every corner of the world.
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What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.
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That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.
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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.
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Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
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The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.
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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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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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How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.
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A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it's people.
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The tolls for the maintenance of a high road, cannot with any safety be made the property of private persons.
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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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No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
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It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.
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Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.
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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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