In public, as well as in private expences, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly. Adam Smith More Quotes by Adam Smith More Quotes From Adam Smith 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 division-of-labor differences character It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures. Adam Smith improvement real natural Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. Adam Smith labor-day labour-movement firsts China is a much richer country than any part of Europe. Adam Smith china europe country 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 discovery philosophy knowledge It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it. Adam Smith sake desire men A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it. Adam Smith demand men order 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 empires political art Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Adam Smith bones saws dog 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. Adam Smith cases men order 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 rewards population complaining 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 land numbers mean The retinue of a grandee in China or Indostan accordingly is, by all accounts, much more numerous and splendid than that of the richest subjects of Europe. Adam Smith china splendid europe To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers. Adam Smith government sight people 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 invisible-hand liberty hands Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune. Adam Smith moral giving men That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages. Adam Smith respect greatness age The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. Adam Smith simple stupid exercise I have no faith in political arithmetic. Adam Smith political faith math I am a beau in nothing but my books. Adam Smith book
