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It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.

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
Sake
Desire
Money
Men
Purchase

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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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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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A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six he might like to have it but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it.
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Whatever work he does, beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.
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The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.
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Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
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Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life.
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Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions.
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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.
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No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
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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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The rate of profit... is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.
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Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
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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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When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than before.
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Though the profusion of Government must undoubtedly have retarded the natural progress of England to wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it.
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Wonder... and not any expectation of advantage from its discoveries, is the first principle which prompts mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature.
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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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The man of system is apt to be very wise in his own conceit. In the great chess board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it
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Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.
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