Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith– 17 July 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher, pioneer of political economy, and a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth5 June 1723
corn silver
Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.
secret trade capable
Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in trade.
ambition common beautiful-mind
Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.
people prosperity economics
A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it's people.
philosophy simple people
In regards to the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates as simple interest does, the rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.
men race would-be
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; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.
wise men hands
The man of system...is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it... He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.
complaining decay prosperity
When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than before.
money reality scarcity
No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
people attention common
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.
saws world lottery
The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.
exercise perfection selfishness
To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.
business men animal
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.
doubt gold would-be
It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing. Money no doubt, makes always a part of the national capital; but it has already been shown that it generally makes but a small part, and always the most unprofitable part of it.