Adam Smith

Quotes From

Lectures on Jurisprudence (1763)

• Till some stock be produced there can be no division of labour, and before a division of labour take place there can be very little accumulation of stock.#Quoted in Barry Weingast, “Adam Smith’s Theory of Violence and the Political Economics of Development” (2017)
• This is one great cause of the slow progress of opulence in every country; till some stock be produced there can be no division of labor, and before a division of labor takes place there can be very little accumulation of stock.#
• If we should enquire into the principle in the human mind on which this disposition of trucking is founded, it is clearly on the natural inclination every one has to persuade. The offering of a shilling, which to us appears to have so plain and simple a meaning, is in reality offering an argument to persuade one to do so and so as it is for his interest.#Quoted in Tom Palmer, “The Hermeneutical View of Freedom” (1990)
• Till there be property there can be no government, the very end of which is to secure wealth, and to defend the rich from the poor.#
• Love which was formerly a ridiculous passion became more grave and respectable. As a proof of this it is worth our observation that no ancient tragedy turned on love, whereas now it is more respectable and influences all the public entertainments.#
• Hereditary nobility is the great security of the people’s liberty.#

The Wealth of Nations (1776)

• When the judicial is united to the executive power, it is scarce possible that justice should not frequently be sacrificed to what is vulgarly called politics.#

The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)

• The digestion of the food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of the several juices which are drawn from it, are operations all of them necessary for the great purposes of animal life. Yet we never endeavor to account for them from those purposes as from their efficient causes, nor imagine that the blood circulates, or that the food digests of its own accord, and with a view or intention to the purposes of circulation or digestion.#