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Adam Smith Quotes
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Adam Smith was a Scottish economist, philosopher and author as well as a moral philosopher, a pioneer of political economy and a key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment era. Smith is best known for two classic works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations . The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics.

Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was one of the first students to benefit from scholarships set up by fellow Scot, John Snell. After graduating, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at Edinburgh, leading him to collaborate with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow teaching moral philosophy and during this time wrote and published The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In his later life, he took a tutoring position that allowed him to travel throughout Europe, where he met other intellectual leaders of his day.

Smith laid the foundations of classical free market economic theory. The Wealth of Nations was a precursor to the modern academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, he developed the concept of division of labour and expounded upon how rational self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity. Smith was controversial in his own day and his general approach and writing style were often satirised by Tory writers in the moralising tradition of William Hogarth and Jonathan Swift. In 2005, The Wealth of Nations was named among the 100 Best Scottish Books of all time. The minor planet 12838 Adamsmith was named in his memory.

✵ 5. June 1723 – 17. July 1790
Adam Smith photo
Adam Smith: 175   quotes 6   likes

Adam Smith Quotes

“No fixed capital can yield any revenue but by means of a circulating capital.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book II, Chapter I, p. 311.

“A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter VIII, p. 81.

Family

“When I endeavour to examine my own conduct, when I endeavour to pass sentence upon it, and either to approve or condemn it, it is evident that, in all such cases, I divide myself, as it were, into two persons; and that I, the examiner and judge, represent a different character from that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into and judged of.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

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

Personality

“The evident justice and utility of the foregoing maxims have recommended them more or less to the attention of all nations.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, p. 894.

Justice

“II. The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, p. 892.

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

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Appendix to Articles I and II, p. 935.

Secret

“The virtue of frugality lies in a middle between avarice and profusion, of which the one consists in an excess, the other in a defect of the proper attention to the objects of self–interest.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

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

“Marriage is encouraged in China, not by the profitableness of children, but by the liberty of destroying them.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter VIII, p. 87.

Marriage , Children

“As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

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

Love , Law , Nature

“Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither have, nor can have, any other way of judging about them.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

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

Love , Way

“To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should never be established in it.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter II, p. 505.

Freedom

“The act of navigation is not favourable to foreign commerce, or to the growth of that opulence which can arise from it. … As defence, however, is of much more importance than opulence, the act of navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England.”

Adam Smith

Source: The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book IV, Chapter II

“In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

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

Life , Peace , Sun , Fight

“This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter I

People , Time

“the competition of the poor takes away from the reward of the rich.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter X, Part II, p. 154.

“It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book II, Chapter III, p. 381.

People , Law

“All money is a matter of belief.”

Adam Smith

https://www.amazon.com/All-money-matter-belief-quotes/dp/B01M0HLG6B
Attributed

Money

“Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

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

Nature , Personality

“Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter XI, Part III, (First Period) p. 223.

“The rulers of Great Britain have, for more than a century past, amused the people with the imagination that they possessed a great empire on the west side of the Atlantic. This empire, however, has hitherto existed in imagination only.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter III, Part V, p. 1032 (Last Page).

People , Imagination , Past

“In the languor of disease and the weariness of old age, the pleasures of the vain and empty distinctions of greatness disappear. To one, in this situation, they are no longer capable of recommending those toilsome pursuits in which they had formerly engaged him. In his heart he curses ambition, and vainly regrets the ease and the indolence of youth, pleasures which are fled for ever, and which he has foolishly sacrificed for what, when he has got it, can afford him no real satisfaction. In this miserable aspect does greatness appear to every man when reduced either by spleen or disease to observe with attention his own situation, and to consider what it is that is really wanting to his happiness. Power and riches appear then to be, what they are, enormous and operose machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniencies to the body, consisting of springs the most nice and delicate, which must be kept in order with the most anxious attention, and which, in spite of all our care, are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor. …
But though this splenetic philosophy, which in time of sickness or low spirits is familiar to every man, thus entirely depreciates those great objects of human desire, when in better health and in better humour, we never fail to regard them under a more agreeable aspect. Our imagination, which in pain and sorrow seems to be confined and cooped up within our own persons, in times of ease and prosperity expands itself to every thing around us. We are then charmed with the beauty of that accommodation which reigns in the palaces and economy of the great; and admire how every thing is adapted to promote their ease, to prevent their wants, to gratify their wishes, and to amuse and entertain their most frivolous desires. If we consider the real satisfaction which all these things are capable of affording, by itself and separated from the beauty of that arrangement which is fitted to promote it, it will always appear in the highest degree contemptible and trifling. But we rarely view it in this abstract and philosophical light. We naturally confound it, in our imagination with the order, the regular and harmonious movement of the system, the machine or economy by means of which it is produced. The pleasures of wealth and greatness, when considered in this complex view, strike the imagination as something grand, and beautiful, and noble, of which the attainment is well worth all the toil and anxiety which we are so apt to bestow upon it.
And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

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

Pain , Health , Pleasure , Youth

“In reality, during the continuance of any one regulated proportion, between the respective values of the different values of the different metals in the coin, the value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter V, p. 50.

Reality

“It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter XI, Part III, (Conclusion..) p. 282.

Nature

“The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

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

Life , Peace , Justice , Passion

“The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire; for it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his good always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little interest of this kind.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter III, Part II, p. 530.

Art

“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.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

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

Justice , Personality

“The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious antipathy to the sea; a superstition nearly of the same kind prevails among the Indians; and the Chinese have never excelled in foreign commerce.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book II, Chapter V, p. 402.

Sea

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

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter V, p. 563.

Wealth

“But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book III, Chapter IV, p. 448.

“His capital is continually going from him in one shape, and returning to him in another, and it is only by means of such circulation, or successive exchanges, that it can yield him any profit. Such capitals, therefore, may very properly be called circulating capitals.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book II, Chapter I, p. 305.

Success

“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.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book II, Chapter III.

Nature , Wealth

“If the importation of foreign cattle, for example, were made ever so free, so few could be imported, that the grazing trade of Great Britain could be little affected by it. Live cattle are, perhaps, the only commodity of which the transportation is more expensive by sea than by land.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter II

Sea

“Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity:…”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter III, Part II, p. 534.

Jealousy

“Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter I, p. 471.

Money

“The freest importation of salt provisions, in the same manner, could have as little effect upon the interest of the graziers of Great Britain as that of live cattle. Salt provisions are not only a very bulky commodity, but when compared with fresh meat, they are a commodity both of worse quality, and as they cost more labour and expence, of higher price. They could never, therefore, come into competition with the fresh meat, though they might with the salt provisions of the country.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter II

Country

“Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter I, Part II, p. 773.

“Such taxes [upon the necessaries of life], when they have grown up to a certain height, are a curse equal to the barrenness of the earth and the inclemency of the heavens; and yet it is in the richest and most industrious countries that they have been most generally imposed. No other countries could support so great a disorder.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter II, paragraph 36, p. 500.

Life , Support , Country

“We do not, however, reckon that trade disadvantageous which consists in the exchange of the hard-ware of England for the wines of France; and yet hard-ware is a very durable commodity, and were it not for this continual exportation, might too be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible augmentation of the pots and pans of the country. But it readily occurs that the number of such utensils is in every country necessarily limited by the use which there is for them; that it would be absurd to have more pots and pans than were necessary for cooking the victuals usually consumed there; and that if the quantity of victuals were to increase, the number of pots and pans would readily increase along with it, apart of the increased quantity of victuals being employed in purchasing them, or in maintaining an additional number of workman whose business it was to make them.”

Adam Smith

Source: The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book IV, Chapter I, p. 471.

Age , Business , Wine , Cooking

“To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first 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.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter VII, Part Third, p. 667.

People , Appearance

“The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter XI, Part III, Conclusion of the Chapter, p. 292.

“I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter V, p. 577.

Faith

“The value of money is in proportion to the quantity of the necessaries of life which it will purchase.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Article IV.

Life , Money

“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.”

Adam Smith

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

Money , People , Art , Learning

“Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attornies, at least, must always be paid by the parties; and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they actually perform it.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter I, Part II, p. 778.

Justice , Reality , Country

“The establishment of any new manufacture, of any new branch of commerce, or any new practice in agriculture, is always a speculation, from which the projector promises himself extraordinary profits. These profits sometimes are very great, and sometimes, more frequently, perhaps, they are quite otherwise; but in general they bear no regular proportion to those of other older trades in the neighbourhood. If the project succeeds, they are commonly at first very high. When the trade or practice becomes thoroughly established and well known, the competition reduces them to the level of other trades.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter X, Part I, p. 136 (tendency of the rate of profit to fall).

“We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

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

Personality

“The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.”

Adam Smith

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

Fear , Exercises , Fraud

“It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing. Money no doubt, makes always a part of the national capital; but it has already been shown that it generally makes but a small part, and always the most unprofitable part of it.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book IV, Chapter I, p. 470.

Money , Parting , Wealth

“Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in trade.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book I, Chapter VII, p. 72.

Secret

“If a workman can conveniently spare those three halfpence, he buys a pot of porter. If he cannot, he contents himself with a pint, and, as a penny saved is a penny got, he thus gains a farthing by his temperance.”

Adam Smith

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Article IV, p. 951.