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Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.
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
Men
Management
Importance
Gives
Share
Chiefly
Public
Affairs
Desire
Account
Government
Affair
Giving
Accounts
More quotes by Adam Smith
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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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.
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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. 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.
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It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense. They are themselves, always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.
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In public, as well as in private expences, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly.
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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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An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.
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I am a beau in nothing but my books.
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China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.
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Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.
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Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither have, nor can have, any other way of judging about them.
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In a militia, the character of the laborer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character.
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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.
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Thus the labour of a manufacture adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his masters profits. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing.
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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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Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness.
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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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The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.
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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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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.
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