133 quotes
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.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
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.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
A man must be perfectly crazy who, where there is tolerable security, does not employ all the stock which he commands,...
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
II. The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
The government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
The proper performance of those several duties of the sovereign necessarily supposes a certain expence; and this expence again necessarily requires a certain revenue to support it.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity:...
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of the public more than that of people of some rank and fortune.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
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.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
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 ever be established in it.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
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.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
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.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
Oatmeal indeed supplies the common people of Scotland with the greatest and best part of their food, which is in general much inferior to that of their neighbours of the same rank in England.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
Avarice and injustice are always shortsighted, and they did not foresee how much this regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt in the long-run the real interest of the landlord.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
For a very small expence the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education.
The Wealth of Nations (1776)