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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.

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
Mean
Computation
Great
Exactness
Warrant
Warrants
Arithmetic
Either
Faith
Political
Computations

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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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An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.
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Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention.
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We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
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Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.
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The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.
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Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.
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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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Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
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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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Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.
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Man, an animal that makes bargains.
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Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.
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The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.
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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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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.
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The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire for it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his good always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little interest of this kind.
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No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
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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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Defense is superior to opulence.
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