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

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We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves.
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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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He is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention
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A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.
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Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State.
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To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.
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Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
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In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
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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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A true party-man hates and despises candour.
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For a very small expence the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education.
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The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.
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The game women play is men.
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The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
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Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition.
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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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But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about.
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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.
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Defense is superior to opulence.
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