Adam Smith quotes

Adam Smith was a prominent economist and philosopher of the 18th century. Born in 1723 in Scotland, Smith is known as the father of modern economics. His groundbreaking work, "The Wealth of Nations," revolutionized the understanding of market economies. Smith's concepts of specialization, division of labor, and the invisible hand are still relevant today. As a proponent of free markets and limited government intervention, his ideas laid the foundation for capitalism. Smith's legacy continues to influence economic theory and policy-making around the world. Learn more about Adam Smith and his contributions to economics by exploring this SEO-friendly bio.

Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions.

- Adam Smith

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

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.

- Adam Smith

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

- Adam Smith

The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.

- Adam Smith

No society can surely be flourishing and happy of which by far the greater part of the numbers are poor and miserable.

- Adam Smith

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

- Adam Smith

It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

- Adam Smith

Individual ambition serves the common good.

- Adam Smith

Every man lives by exchanging.

- Adam Smith

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

A man must be perfectly crazy who, where there is tolerable security, does not employ all the stock which he commands.

- Adam Smith

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-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.

- Adam Smith

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

Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.

- 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

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

- Adam Smith

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

- Adam Smith

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.

- Adam Smith

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.

- Adam Smith

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

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

All money is a matter of belief.

- Adam Smith

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

- Adam Smith

To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.

- Adam Smith

With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.

- Adam Smith

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.

- 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

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

- Adam Smith

This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.

- Adam Smith