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

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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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A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.
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Ask any rich man of common prudence to which of the two sorts of people he has lent the greater part of his stock, to those who, he thinks, will employ it profitably, or to those who will spend it idly, and he will laugh at you for proposing the question.
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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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It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.
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This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.
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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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We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
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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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The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.
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I am a beau in nothing but my books.
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The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.
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Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.
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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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Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.
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The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious antipathy to the sea a superstition nearly of the same kind prevails among the Indians and the Chinese have never excelled in foreign commerce.
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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.
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Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
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The learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.
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The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition . . . is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration.
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