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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.

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
Differences
Exact
Economy
Laid
Small
Anxious
Character
Consists
Attends
Persons
Consequence
Miser
Person
Matters
Misers
Matter
Sake
Scheme
Life
Difference
Schemes

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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.
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But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced, but in so cold a soil, and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies.
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To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should never be established in it.
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There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.
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With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.
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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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Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
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The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.
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The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the affect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. To complain of it, is to lament over the necessary effect and cause of the greatest public prosperity.
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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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The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.
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Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor.
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The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.
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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.
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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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The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be... The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough.
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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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No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
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Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.
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