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Whatever work he does, beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.

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
Interest
Whatever
Squeezed
Doe
Purchase
Work
Maintenance
Sufficient
Economics
Beyond
Violence

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The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money.
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Defense is superior to opulence.
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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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A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it's people.
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In public, as well as in private expences, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly.
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With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.
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Have lots of experiments, but make sure they're strategically focused.
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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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The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.
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The machines that are first invented to perform any particular movement are always the most complex, and succeeding artists generally discover that, with fewer wheels, with fewer principles of motion, than had originally been employed, the same effects may be more easily produced. The first systems, in the same manner, are always the most complex.
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The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.
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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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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.
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Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
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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.
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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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All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.
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The cheapness of wine seems to be a cause, not of drunkenness, but of sobriety. ...People are seldom guilty of excess in what is their daily fare... On the contrary, in the countries which, either from excessive heat or cold, produce no grapes, and where wine consequently is dear and a rarity, drunkenness is a common vice.
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Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
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Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
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