Adam Smith May Quotations

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.

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

Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from those rules, is consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it.

That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.

In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.