338 Quotes by Adam Smith

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.

Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.

Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.

Under capitalism the more money you have, the easier it is to make money, and the less money you have, the harder.Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. The affluence of the rich supposes the indigence of the many.

The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.

No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.

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.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens.

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.