Adam Smith: Trending quotes (page 3)

“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

Source: The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter X, Part II, p. 152.
Context: 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. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

People

“Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter I, Part II, p. 770.
Source: The Wealth of Nations

“Every man lives by exchanging.”

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 book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Section I, Chap. I.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part I

Pleasure , Nature , Selfishness , Happiness

“Problems worthy of attacks, prove their worth by hitting back”

Adam Smith

Problem

“Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.”

Adam Smith

“Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter II, p. 14.
Source: The Wealth of Nations

Dogs

“The learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.”

Adam Smith

Imagination , Idea , Sense , Learning

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker”

Adam Smith

Source: The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter II, p. 19.
Source: The Wealth of Nations, Books 1-3
Context: But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. 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. 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. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.

Business

“When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, over-trading becomes a general error both among great and small dealers.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter I, p. 469.

Error

“In manufactures, a very small advantage will enable foreigners to undersell our own workmen, even in the home market. It will require a very great one to enable them to do so in the rude produce of the soil. If the free importation of foreign manufactures were permitted, several of the home manufactures would probably suffer, and some of them, perhaps, go to ruin altogether, and a considerable part of the stock and industry at present employed in them, would be forced to find out some other employment. But the freest importation of the rude produce of the soil could have no such effect upon the agriculture of the country.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter II

Home , Suffering , Parting , Country

“Of all those expensive and uncertain projects, however, which bring bankruptcy upon the greater part of the people who engage in in them, there is none perhaps more perfectly ruinous than the search after new silver and gold mines. It is perhaps the most disadvantageous lottery in the world, or the one in which the gain of those who draw the prizes bears the least proportion to the loss of those who draw the blanks: for though the prizes are few and the blanks are many, the common price of a ticket is the whole fortune of a very rich man.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter VII, Part First, p. 610.

People , World , Search , Loss

“In England, and in all Roman Catholic countries, the lottery of the church is in reality much more advantageous than is necessary.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter X, Part II, p. 155.

Reality , Country

“Society and conversation, therefore, are the most powerful remedies for restoring the mind to its tranquillity, if, at any time, it has unfortunately lost it; as well as the best preservatives of that equal and happy temper, which is so necessary to self-satisfaction and enjoyment. Men of retirement and speculation, who are apt to sit brooding at home over either grief or resentment, though they may often have more humanity, more generosity, and a nicer sense of honour, yet seldom possess that equality of temper which is so common among men of the world.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Section I, Chap. III.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part I

Men , World , Home , Sense

“Even the free importation of foreign corn could very little affect the interest of the farmers of Great Britain. Corn is a much more bulky commodity than butcher's-meat. A pound of wheat at a penny is as dear as a pound of butcher's-meat at fourpence. The small quantity of foreign corn imported even in times of the greatest scarcity, may satisfy our farmers that they can have nothing to fear from the freest importation.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter II

Fear , Time

“It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book III, Chapter IV, p. 420.

“That of beaver skins, of beaver wool, and of gum Senega, has been subjected to higher duties; Great Britain, by the conquest of Canada and Senegal, having got almost the monopoly of those commodities.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Article IV, p. 954-955.

“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.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter I, Part III, Article I, p. 810.

“It may indeed be doubted, whether butcher's meat is any where a necessary of life. Grain and other vegetables, with the help of milk, cheese, and butter, or oil, where butter is not to be had, it is known from experience, can, without any butcher's meat, afford the most plentiful, the most wholesome, the most nourishing, and the most invigorating diet.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Appendix to Articles I and II.

Life , Help

“The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.”

Adam Smith

Chapter X, Part I http://books.google.com/books?id=QItKAAAAYAAJ&q=%22The+world+neither+ever+saw+nor+ever+will+see+a+perfectly+fair+lottery%22&pg=PA76#v=onepage.
(1776), Book I

World