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
skills division-of-labor dexterity
The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
progressive-taxation government support
The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.
men order law
The interest of [businessmen] is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ... ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined ... with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men ... who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public
empathy dancer balance
The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally writhe and twist and balance their own bodies, as they see him do.
men empathy
A sketch of a man facing to the right.
taxation sugar commodity
Sugar, rum and tobacco are commodities which are nowhere necessaries of life, which are become objects of almost universal consumption, and which are therefore extremely proper subjects of taxation.
men sight judging
Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither have, nor can have, any other way of judging about them.
technology blood robots
The robot is going to lose. Not by much. But when the final score is tallied, flesh and blood is going to beat the damn monster.
stupid intelligent people
An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.
happiness cheerfulness habitual
Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness.
men lovely desire
Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.
book reading grace
When we have read a book or poem so often that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by ourselves, we can still take pleasure in reading it to a companion. To him it has all the graces of novelty.
philosophy knowledge discovery
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.
government upset management
As soon as government management begins it upsets the natural equilibrium of industrial relations, and each interference only requires further bureaucratic control until the end is the tyranny of the totalitarian state.