To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should never be established in it. — Adam Smith

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

Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in trade. — Adam Smith

The importation of gold and silver is not the principal, much less the sole benefit which a nation derives from its foreign trade. — Adam Smith

When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, over–trading becomes a general error both among great and small dealers. — Adam Smith

In general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labour, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition, it will always be the more so. — Adam Smith

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. — Adam Smith

When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than before. — Adam Smith

Every man lives by exchanging. — Adam Smith

The great affair, we always find, is to get money. — Adam Smith

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

There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people. — Adam Smith

Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods. — Adam Smith

That will be one of the chief things That my committee tries to do, is to put into the ndaa (national defense authorization act) strict restrictions on how money can be used. — Adam Smith

The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money. — Adam Smith

It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue but something more than in that proportion. — Adam Smith

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards The support of The government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to Their respective abilities… — Adam Smith

Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence. — Adam Smith

The wages of labour are the encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality, improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives. — Adam Smith

All jobs are created in direct proportion to the amount of capital employed. — Adam Smith

I thInk thIs Is a small Issue that’s beIng blown out of proportIon by those who oppose the deal for a varIety of reasons. — Adam Smith

Governments are] …without exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. — 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

It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society. — Adam Smith

The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of the public more than that of people of some rank and fortune. — Adam Smith

What is the work of one man, in a rude state of society, being generally that of several in an improved one. — Adam Smith

The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating. — Adam Smith

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

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. — Adam Smith

It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures. — Adam Smith

The agents of [government] regard the wealth of their master as inexhaustible; are careless at what price they buy … at what price they sell. — Adam Smith

I have always considered David Hume as approaching as nearly the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will allow. — Adam Smith

The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy. — 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. — 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

We will give people access to food until it becomes a human right to have food, We won’t stop until We do that. — Adam Smith

The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life seems to arise from over–rating the difference between one permanent situation and another… — Adam Smith

In public, as well as in private expences, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly. — Adam Smith

Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct. — Adam Smith

Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State. — Adam Smith

What we can do is try to shine a light on it, to make the case that this is a bad idea, drum up public pressure so the president will stop doing these things. — Adam Smith

For a very small expence the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education. — Adam Smith