Quote

Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with with those of the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that the greatest of all improvements.

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
Greatest
Improvement
Neighbourhoods
Upon
Nearly
Carriage
Country
Town
Diminishing
Good
Towns
Canals
Rivers
Carriages
Parts
Improvements
Level
Remote
Levels
Roads
Neighbourhood

More quotes by Adam Smith

Image
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.
Adam Smith
Image
What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?
Adam Smith
Image
The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.
Adam Smith
Image
The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education.
Adam Smith
Image
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.
Adam Smith
Image
The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
Adam Smith
Image
But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced, but in so cold a soil, and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies.
Adam Smith
Image
To hinder, besides, the farmer from selling his goods at all times to the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary laws of justice to an idea of public utility, to a sort of reasons of state an act of legislative authority which ought to be exercised only, which can be pardoned only in cases of the most urgent necessity.
Adam Smith
Image
I have no faith in political arithmetic.
Adam Smith
Image
For a very small expence the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education.
Adam Smith
Image
Poor David Hume is dying fast, but with more real cheerfulness and good humor and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things, than any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.
Adam Smith
Image
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.
Adam Smith
Image
Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
Adam Smith
Image
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.
Adam Smith
Image
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
Adam Smith
Image
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.
Adam Smith
Image
What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.
Adam Smith
Image
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.
Adam Smith
Image
Problems worthy of attacks, prove their worth by hitting back
Adam Smith
Image
The game women play is men.
Adam Smith