ADAM SMITH


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Adam Smith

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
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Adam Smith

The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands, and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbour, is a plain violation of this most sacred property.
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Adam Smith

Lotteries are a tax on ignorance
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Adam Smith

When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid. The liberation of the public revenue, if it has ever been brought about at all, has always been brought about by bankruptcy; sometimes by an avowed one, but always by a real one, though frequently by a pretend payment.
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Adam Smith

Were the expense of war to be defrayed always by a revenue raised within the year ... wars would in general be more speedily concluded, and less wantonly undertaken
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Adam Smith

Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life.
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Adam Smith

We suffer more … when we fall from a better to a worse situation, than we ever enjoy when we rise from a worse to a better. Security, therefore, is the first and the principal object of prudence.
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It is this principle that makes any kind of economic reform so difficult to implement. People do not want to lose what they have obtained and do not want to risk any change.

Adam Smith

Wonder... and not any expectation of advantage from its discoveries, is the first principle which prompts mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature.
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Adam Smith

Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with those of the neighborhood of the town. They are upon that the greatest of all improvements.
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Adam Smith

Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.
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Adam Smith
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Adam Smith
  • Born: June 16, 1723
  • Died: July 17, 1790
  • Nationality: Scottish
  • Profession: Economist
Biography

Adam Smith FRSA was a Scottish economist, philosopher as well as a moral philosopher, a pioneer of political economy, and a key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment, also known as ''The Father of Economics'' or ''The Father of Capitalism''. Smith wrote two classic works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. In his work, Adam Smith introduced his theory of absolute advantage.

Related Authors
Murray Rothbard, John Kenneth Galbraith, Rudolf Hilferding, Stephen Leacock, Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Friedrich Hayek, John Maynard Keynes