Adam Smith Quotes

The wealth of a nation is best measured by the well-being of its people. – Adam Smith

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. – Adam Smith

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. – Adam Smith

The invisible hand of the market guides individuals to pursue their self-interest in a way that benefits society as a whole. – Adam Smith

Labor is the starting point, the foundation upon which all wealth is built. – Adam Smith

Wealth, as Mr. Hobbes says, is power. – Adam Smith

The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. – Adam Smith

The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. – Adam Smith

The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour. – Adam Smith

No society can be considered flourishing or happy if the majority of its members are in poverty and misery. – Adam Smith

Adam Smith Quotes part 2

The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition… is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations. – Adam Smith

To educate the people, is in reality to teach them to be conformable to established measures. A’pretty education! Larger the sword and stone walls. – Adam Smith

It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive, than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country. – Adam Smith

The division of labor is limited by the extent of the market. When the market is very small, no person can have any encouragement to dedicate himself entirely to one employment. – Adam Smith

Every man lives by exchanging. – Adam Smith

All money is a matter of belief. – Adam Smith

Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. – Adam Smith

The watch of the night is the passage from darkness to light. Everybody knows that night-time – sleep – and ink – obscurity – are the favourable conditions for creation. – Adam Smith

With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches. – Adam Smith

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition. – Adam Smith

The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals. – Adam Smith

What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconvenience to the whole. – Adam Smith

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production. – Adam Smith

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. – Adam Smith

The real value of a thing is the price it will bring. – Adam Smith

Art and industry, joined together, give enormous power and facilities for good; and the consequence is, that those who are powerful and wealthy are enabled to indulge their whims and fancies, their love of power, their love of show, and their love of sensuality, far more readily than they can with the same additional expenditure in satisfying their needs. – Adam Smith

The state is in constant need of more and more support from the people. – Adam Smith

The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations. – Adam Smith

In regards to the price of commodities, the rise and fall of wages always tends to lead to a rise and fall of their prices. – Adam Smith

Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. – Adam Smith

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

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. – Adam Smith

The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgement with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour. – Adam Smith

The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation. – Adam Smith

The uniform, constant and uninterrupted effort of every man to improve his situation, when free to exert himself, pervades all the different ranks of society. – Adam Smith

The division of labor is limited by the extent of the market. – Adam Smith

In general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labor, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition, it will always be the more so. – 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

Man is an animal that makes bargains, no other animal does this – no dog exchanges bones with another. – Adam Smith

Commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government, and to accommodate itself to these gradually introduced laws and police. – Adam Smith

No complaint is more common than that of a scarcity of money. – Adam Smith

The revenue of the society consists altogether in those goods, and in that part of the produce of the labour of the society which is reserved for immediate consumption. – Adam Smith

Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. – Adam Smith

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. – Adam Smith

The division of labor occasioned by the wide extent of trade necessarily increases the productive powers of labor. – Adam Smith