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A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.

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
Economics
Necessarily
Citizens
Particular
Country
Merchant
Merchants
Citizen
Properly

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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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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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When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, over-trading becomes a general error both among great and small dealers.
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The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.
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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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I am a beau in nothing but my books.
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Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions.
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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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I have no faith in political arithmetic.
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Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.
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The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.
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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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This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.
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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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Man, an animal that makes bargains.
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Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
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All money is a matter of belief.
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Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
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Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.
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A sketch of a man facing to the right.
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