People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. Adam Smith More Quotes by Adam Smith More Quotes From Adam Smith Now many such things may be done without intitling the people to rise in arms. A gross, flagrant, and palpable abuse no doubt will do it, as if they should be required to pay a tax equal to half or third of their substance. Adam Smith political philosophy people The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals. Adam Smith business animal men 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 origin-of-life wealth-of-nations produce A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation. Adam Smith race would-be men It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver. Adam Smith happens We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations [that is, unions or colluding organizations] of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual price. Adam Smith ignorant organization world It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society. Adam Smith unjust benefits should The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of the public more than that of people of some rank and fortune. Adam Smith common attention people 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 progressive-taxation essentials people As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation. Adam Smith empathy men ideas This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts. Adam Smith ignorance imagination facts The tolls for the maintenance of a high road, cannot with any safety be made the property of private persons. Adam Smith tolls maintenance safety Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition. Adam Smith real ambition men Thus the labour of a manufacture adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his masters profits. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing. Adam Smith maintenance masters add Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from those rules, is consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it. Adam Smith banking principles practice 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 utopia absurd should Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man. Adam Smith generosity humanity men Though the profusion of Government must undoubtedly have retarded the natural progress of England to wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it. Adam Smith progress able government Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty. Adam Smith business adventure travel The great affair, we always find, is to get money. Adam Smith get-money affair
