Quotes from book
The Fable of the Bees

The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits is a book by Bernard Mandeville, consisting of the poem The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves turn’d Honest, along with prose discussion of the poem. The poem was published in 1705, and the book first appeared in 1714. The poem suggests many key principles of economic thought, including division of labor and the "invisible hand", seventy years before these concepts were more thoroughly elucidated by Adam Smith. Two centuries later, John Maynard Keynes cited Mandeville to show that it was "no new thing ... to ascribe the evils of unemployment to ... the insufficiency of the propensity to consume", a condition also known as the paradox of thrift, which was central to his own theory of effective demand.


Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo

“Pride and Vanity have built more Hospitals than all the Virtues together.”

"An Essay on Charity, and Charity-Schools", p. 294
The Fable of the Bees (1714)

Bernard Mandeville photo

“They put off hearings wilfully,
To finger the refreshing fee.”

"The Grumbling Hive", line 65, p. 4
The Fable of the Bees (1714)

Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo

“The worst of all the Multitude
Did something for the Common Good.”

"The Grumbling Hive", line 167, p. 9
The Fable of the Bees (1714)

Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville photo

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