Quotations by Adam Smith

Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

The great affair, we always find, is to get money.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

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 · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

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 · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

The government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

But bounty and hospitality very seldom lead to extravagance; though vanity almost always does.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.

Adam Smith · An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations