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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.

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
Character
Laborer
Every
Laborers
Militia
Soldier
Army
Standing
Artificer
Arms
Tradesman
Military
Predominates

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Men of the most robust make, observe that in looking upon sore eyes they often feel a very sensible soreness in their own, which proceeds from the same reason that organ being in the strongest man more delicate, than any other part of the body is in the weakest.
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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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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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It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.
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A true party-man hates and despises candour.
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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.
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Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from those rules, is consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it.
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The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating.
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Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
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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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Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
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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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It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.
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I have no faith in political arithmetic.
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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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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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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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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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Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.
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The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, capable not only of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting 100 impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.
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