“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.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious antipathy to the sea; a superstition nearly of the same kind prevails among t…" by Adam Smith?

Adam Smith 175

Scottish moral philosopher and political economist 1723–1790

Related quotes

“As the global expansion of Indian and Chinese restaurants suggests, xenophobia is directed against foreign people, not foreign cultural imports.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Mapping the Nation (Mappings Series) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=39IHUaOV9fUC&pg=PA263 (13 November 2012), p. 263.

“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 (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

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

“Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.”

Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) British journalist, businessman, and essayist

Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,
And honor sinks, where commerce long prevails.
— Oliver Goldsmith, "The Traveller; or, a Prospect of Society'" http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/golds02.html (1764). This quote can be found on the Oliver Goldsmith page.
Misattributed

“Kalidasa, the immortal poet and playwright, is a peerless genius whose works have won world-wide fame. The matchless qualities of his work have been lavishly praised both by the ancient Indian critics and modern scholars. (…) In modern times the translations of Kalidasa's works in numerous Indian and foreign languages have spread his fame all over the world and now he ranks among the few topmost poets and playwrights of the world.”

Ram Gopal (1925) Indian author and historian

Kālidāsa: His Art and Culture by Ram Gopal (1984)

“In the course of waging that war, the people of Canada had shown that it was possible for them to maintain nearly a million men in uniform and at the same time expand all the facilities for production within Canada at an unprecedented speed, including building industries which had never existed in Canada before… and by and large the cost of production in Canada compared favourable with the cost of production anywhere else among the Allies… All of this was accomplished without any foreign investment, without and foreign loans… We were quite capable of self-development.”

Tim Buck (1891–1973) Canadian politician

Tim Buck A Conscience for Canada

“Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

This evokes Will Durant's famous summation of Aristotle: "Excellence then is not an act, but a habit."
2000s, The Powell Principles (2003)
Context: If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.

“If the system of perfect liberty to industry and commerce were the prevailing system of nations,”

Alexander Hamilton Report on Manufactures

Report on Manufactures (1791)
Context: If the system of perfect liberty to industry and commerce were the prevailing system of nations, the arguments which dissuade a country in the predicament of the United States, from the zealous pursuits of manufactures would doubtless have great force. (...) But the system which has been mentioned, is far from characterising the general policy of Nations. The prevalent one has been regulated by an opposite spirit. The consequence of it is, that the United States are to a certain extent in the situation of a country precluded from foreign Commerce. They can indeed, without difficulty obtain from abroad the manufactured supplies, of which they are in want; but they experience numerous and very injurious impediments to the emission and vent of their own commodities. (...) In such a position of things, the United States cannot exchange with Europe on equal terms, and the want of reciprocity would render them the victim of a system, which should induce them to confine their views to Agriculture and refrain from Manufactures. A constant and increasing necessity, on their part, for the commodities of Europe, and only a partial and occasional demand for their own, in return, could not but expose them to a state of impoverishment, compared with the opulence to which their political and natural advantages authorise them to aspire.