Adam Smith (1723 – 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. It earned him an enormous reputation and would become one of the most influential works on economics ever published. Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics and capitalism. However, scholars have noted that The Wealth of Nations is a book that has prominently created conundrums for some thinkers, who think it justifies callous business activity. 

Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and the University of Oxford. After graduating, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at Edinburgh, leading him to collaborate with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow teaching moral philosophy, and during this time he wrote and published The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In his later life, he took a tutoring position that allowed him to travel throughout Europe, where he met other intellectual leaders of his day. Smith returned home and spent the next ten years writing The Wealth of Nations, publishing it in 1776. He died in 1790. 

Adam Smith Quotes 

Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty.
Adam Smith

All money is a matter of belief.
Adam Smith

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.
Adam Smith

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.
Adam Smith

Defense is superior to opulence.
Adam Smith

Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition.
Adam Smith

Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
Adam Smith

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.
Adam Smith

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
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

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

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

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
Adam Smith

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

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

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.
Adam Smith

Poor David Hume is dying fast, but with more real cheerfulness and good humor and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things, than any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.
Adam Smith

Labour was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.
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

Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.
Adam Smith

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

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.
Adam Smith

The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.
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

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
Adam Smith

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?
Adam Smith

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

This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.
Adam Smith

To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.
Adam Smith