Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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.
Adam Smith
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Men
Wisdom
Credulous
Teach
Incredulity
Natural
Scarce
Lives
Acquired
Experience
Disposition
Enough
Seldom
Believe
Internet
Always
Ought
More quotes by Adam Smith
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.
Adam Smith
In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the nicest artifice to the ends which they are intended to produce and in the mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is contrived for advancing the two great purposes of nature, the support of the individual, and the propagation of the species.
Adam Smith
Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.
Adam Smith
The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.
Adam Smith
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
Adam Smith
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.
Adam Smith
All money is a matter of belief.
Adam Smith
The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.
Adam Smith
It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.
Adam Smith
The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.
Adam Smith
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.
Adam Smith
Sugar, rum and tobacco are commodities which are nowhere necessaries of life, which are become objects of almost universal consumption, and which are therefore extremely proper subjects of taxation.
Adam Smith
Capitals are increased by parsimony, and diminished by prodigalityand misconduct. By what a frugal man annually saves he not onlyaffords maintenance to an additional number of productive hands?but?he establishes as it were a perpetual fund for the maintenance of an equal number in all times to come.
Adam Smith
A sketch of a man facing to the right.
Adam Smith
The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation.
Adam Smith
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
Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.
Adam Smith
No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
Adam Smith
An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.
Adam Smith
By pursuing his own interest (the individual) frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
Adam Smith