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  • Adam Smith Quotes   204
  • A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the same effect as a secret in trade or manufactures. The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked, by never fully supplying the effectual demand, sell their commodities much above the natural price, and raise their emoluments, whether they consist in wages or profit, greatly above their natural rate.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Competition Quotes , Secret Quotes
  • The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with most unnecessary attention but assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of man who have folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Exercise Quotes , Men Quotes
  • To hinder, besides, the farmer from selling his goods at all times to the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary laws of justice to an idea of public utility, to a sort of reasons of state; an act of legislative authority which ought to be exercised only, which can be pardoned only in cases of the most urgent necessity.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Sacrifice Quotes , Law Quotes
  • It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Country Quotes , Banking Quotes
  • But avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property, passions much more steady in their operation, and much more universal in their influence. 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.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Affluence Quotes , Making Money Quotes
  • The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Men Quotes , Sitting Still Quotes
  • 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.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Origin Of Life Quotes , Produce Quotes
  • The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, capable not only of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting 100 impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.
  • 4 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Powerful Quotes , Law Quotes