“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

Source: The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book III, Chapter IV, p. 448.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 8, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the m…" by Adam Smith?
Adam Smith photo
Adam Smith 175
Scottish moral philosopher and political economist 1723–1790

Related quotes

Karel Čapek photo

“Robots of the world! Many people have fallen. By seizing the factory we have become the masters of everything. The age of mankind is over. A new world has begun! The rule of Robots!”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

Richard Cobden photo

“We are on the eve of great changes…We have set an example to the world in all ages; we have given them the representative system. The very rules and regulations of this House have been taken as the model for every representative assembly throughout the whole civilised world; and having besides given them the example of a free press and civil and religious freedom, and every institution that belongs to freedom and civilisation, we are now about giving a still greater example; we are going to set the example of making industry free—to set the example of giving the whole world every advantage of clime, and latitude, and situation, relying ourselves on the freedom of our industry. Yes, we are going to teach the world that other lesson. Don't think there is anything selfish in this, or anything at all discordant with Christian principles. I can prove that we advocate nothing but what is agreeable to the highest behests of Christianity. To buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest. What is the meaning of the maxim? It means that you take the article which you have in the greatest abundance, and with it obtain from others that of which they have the most to spare; so giving to mankind the means of enjoying the fullest abundance of earth's goods, and in doing so, carrying out to the fullest extent the Christian doctrine of 'Doing to all men as ye would they should do unto you.”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (27 February 1846), quoted in John Bright and J. E. Thorold Rogers (eds.), Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M.P. Volume I (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908), p. 198.
1840s

William Howitt photo

“The barbarities and desperate outrages of the so-called Christian race, throughout every region of the world, and upon every people they have been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by those of any other race, however fierce, however untaught, and however reckless of mercy and of shame in any age of the earth.”

William Howitt (1792–1879) British writer

Colonization and Christianity. Quoted from The Capital by Karl Marx https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm, and https://books.google.com/books?id=Zajh1WZa-OoC

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

As quoted in The Ring of Truth (2004) by Joseph O'Day

“And truly, I to hope that I have made this thing somewise clear unto you; for, indeed, it doth be something hard to set out; for every Age hath the subtleties peculiar to that Age; and these to be hard to the understanding of other Ages, but yet to seem plain and utter natural, even without thought, unto the Peoples of the Age.”

William Hope Hodgson book The Night Land

Source: The Night Land (1912), Chapter 13

Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo

“The fundamental maxim of those who stand at the head of this Age, and therefore the principle of the Age, is this,—to accept nothing as really existing or obligatory, but that which they can understand and clearly comprehend.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

With regard to this fundamental principle, as we have now declared and adopted it without farther definition or limitation, this third Age is precisely similar to that which is to follow it, the fourth, or age of Reason as Science,—and by virtue of this similarity prepares the way for it. Before the tribunal of Science, too, nothing is accepted but the Conceivable. Only in the application of the principle there is this difference between the two Ages,—that the third, which we shall shortly name that of Empty Freedom, makes its fixed and previously acquired conceptions the measure of existence; while the fourth—that of Science—on the contrary, makes existence the measure, not of its acquired, but of its desiderated beliefs.
Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 19

Benjamin Creme photo

“Mankind will soon see that there is no alternative to sharing the produce of the world. Every other method has been tried and failed, and has led inevitably to war, suffering, degradation and misery.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)

George D. Prentice photo

“Some people seem as if they can never have been children, and others seem as if they could never be anything else.”

George D. Prentice (1802–1870) American newspaper editor

Prenticeana http://books.google.com/books?id=4P0gAAAAMAAJ&q=%22SOME+people+seem+as+if+they+can+never+have+been+children+and+others+seem+as+if+they+could+never+be+any+thing+else%22&pg=PA100#v=onepage (1860)

“The great struggle of our age was brewing.
One antagonist appeared as the will to dare for the sake of the new, the longed for, the reasonable and joyful, world, in which every man and woman may have scope to live fully, and live in service of mankind. The other seemed essentially the myopic fear of the unknown; or was it more sinister? Was it the cunning will for private mastery, which fomented for its own ends the archaic, reason-hating, and vindictive, passion of the tribe.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter XVI: Epilogue: Back to Earth (p. 187)

Bram Stoker photo

“I have been so long master
that I would be master still, or at least that none other
should be master of me.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Related topics