Quotes by Adam Smith

A person who can acquire no property, can have no other interest but to eat as much, and to labour as little as possible. Whatever work he does beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own. (Adam Smith)

Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty. (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)

All money is a matter of belief. (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)

Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse. (Adam Smith)

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man. (Adam Smith)

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. (Adam Smith)

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. (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)