Quote

The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increasing either the number of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of those labourers who had before been employed.

Adam Smith

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Adam Smith
Age: 67 †
Born: 1723
Born: June 16
Died: 1790
Died: July 17
Economist
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Lang Toun
Land
Labour
Either
Productive
Nations
Powers
Labourers
Values
Number
Annuals
Means
Value
Annual
Mean
Produce
Increased
Nation
Employed
Numbers
Increasing

More quotes by Adam Smith

Image
It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.
Adam Smith
Image
Man, an animal that makes bargains.
Adam Smith
Image
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.
Adam Smith
Image
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.
Adam Smith
Image
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.
Adam Smith
Image
It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.
Adam Smith
Image
The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.
Adam Smith
Image
It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.
Adam Smith
Image
The tolls for the maintenance of a high road, cannot with any safety be made the property of private persons.
Adam Smith
Image
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.
Adam Smith
Image
But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.
Adam Smith
Image
In ease of body, peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.
Adam Smith
Image
Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.
Adam Smith
Image
Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.
Adam Smith
Image
No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
Adam Smith
Image
There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.
Adam Smith
Image
A sketch of a man facing to the right.
Adam Smith
Image
The division of labour was limited by the extent of the market
Adam Smith
Image
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
Adam Smith
Image
Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
Adam Smith