Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Philosopher, Economist

Adam Smith was an 18th-century economist known for his influential work, 'The Wealth of Nations,' which laid the groundwork for modern economic theory.

Men People Government Country Economics Invisible Hand
Born
June 16, 1723
Died
July 17, 1790
Quotes
204
Rank
#3653

Quote collection

Adam Smith quotes (page 10 of 11)

204 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"That this is the source of our fellow-feeling for the misery of others, that it is by changing places in fancy with the sufferer, that we come either to conceive or to be affected by what he feels, may be demonstrated by many obvious observations, if it should not be thought sufficiently evident of itself. When we see a stroke aimed and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer."

Hurt Fall Empathy
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

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

Get Money Affair
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

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

Secret Kept Secrets Register
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced, but in so cold a soil, and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies."

Children Science Climate
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"I am always willing to run some hazard of being tedious, in order to be sure that I am perspicuous; and, after taking the utmost pains that I can to be perspicuous, some obscurity may still appear to remain upon a subject, in its own nature extremely abstracted."

Running Pain Order
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"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."

Sacrifice Law Ideas
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"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."

Government Sight People
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"Both ground- rents and the ordinary rent of land are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. The annual produce of the land and labour of the society, the real wealth and revenue of the great body of the people, might be the same after such a tax as before. Ground-rents, and the ordinary rent of land are, therefore, perhaps the species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them."

Real Land People
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from those rules, is consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it."

Practice Principles Banking
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"Men of the most robust make, observe that in looking upon sore eyes they often feel a very sensible soreness in their own, which proceeds from the same reason; that organ being in the strongest man more delicate, than any other part of the body is in the weakest."

Eye Men Empathy
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"That a joint stock company should be able to carry on successfully any branch of foreign trade, when private adventurers can come into any sort of open and fair competition with them, seems contrary to all experience."

Competition Branches Able
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"The importation of gold and silver is not the principal, much less the sole benefit which a nation derives from its foreign trade."

Gold Benefits Silver
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"The principle which prompts to save is the desire of bettering our conditiona desire which?comes with us from the womb and never leaves us till we go into the grave."

Desire Principles Graves
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"In public, as well as in private expences, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly."

Apology May Wealth
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"Avarice and injustice are always shortsighted, and they did not foresee how much this regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt in the long-run the real interest of the landlord."

Running Hurt Real
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"When we have read a book or poem so often that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by ourselves, we can still take pleasure in reading it to a companion. To him it has all the graces of novelty."

Book Reading Grace
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"The emotions of the spectator will still be very apt to fall short of the violence of what is felt by the sufferer. Mankind, though naturally sympathetic, never conceive, for what has befallen another, that degree of passion which naturally animates the person principally concerned."

Fall Passion Empathy
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"Though the profusion of Government must undoubtedly have retarded the natural progress of England to wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it."

Government Progress Able
Read quote 3 likes
Adam Smith Philosopher, Economist
Popular

"Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with with those of the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that the greatest of all improvements."

Country Rivers Levels
Read quote 3 likes