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  • Adam Smith Quotes   204
  • To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Government Quotes , Sight Quotes
  • 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.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Organization Quotes , Ignorant Quotes
  • 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.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Happiness Quotes , Selfish Quotes
  • The liberal reward of labor, therefore, as it is the necessary effect, so it is the natural symptom of increasing national wealth. The scanty maintenance of the laboring poor, on the other hand, is the natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their starving condition that they going backwards fast.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Hands Quotes , Rewards 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.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Country Quotes , Banking 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.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Powerful Quotes , Law Quotes
  • The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people's money than of their own, it cannot well be expected, that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own.... Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , People Quotes , Watches Quotes
  • The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. 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.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Adam Smith Quotes , Real Quotes , Mean Quotes