Adam Smith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith
“The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.”Contemporary accounts describe Smith as an eccentric but benevolent intellectual, comically absent minded, with peculiar habits of speech and gait and a smile of "inexpressible benignity". He was known to talk to himself, and had occasional spells of imaginary illness.
Smith is often described as a prototypical absent-minded professor. He is reported to have had books and papers stacked up in his study, with a habit he developed during childhood of speaking to himself and smiling in rapt conversation with invisible companions.
Various anecdotes have discussed his absentminded nature. In one story, Smith reportedly took the Honorable Charles Townshend on a tour of a tanning factoring and while discussing free trade, Smith walked into a huge tanning pit from which he had to be removed. Another episode records that he put bread and butter into a teapot, drank the concoction, and declared it to be the worst cup of tea he ever had. In another example, Smith went out walking and daydreaming in his nightgown and ended up 15 miles (24 km) outside town before nearby church bells brought him back to reality.
“All money is a matter of belief.”
“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.”
“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”
“I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.”
“It (Oxford) is a sanctuary in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices find shelter and protection after they have been hunted out of every corner of the world.”
“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.”
“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
“Every individual...generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.”
“Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.”
“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.”
“Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.”
“What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?”
“Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.”
“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.”
“The mind is so rarely disturbed, but that the company of friend will restore it to some degree of tranquility and sedateness.”
“Such is the delicacy of man alone, that no object is produced to his liking. He finds that in everything there is need for improvement.... The whole industry of human life is employed not in procuring the supply of our three humble necessities, food, clothes and lodging, but in procuring the conveniences of it according to the nicety and delicacy of our tastes.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The machines that are first invented to perform any particular movement are always the most complex, and succeeding artists generally discover that, with fewer wheels, with fewer principles of motion, than had originally been employed, the same effects may be more easily produced. The first systems, in the same manner, are always the most complex.”
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Originally Posted by Joy
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