Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own adva….

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

The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually consu….

It may indeed be doubted whether butchers' meet is anywhere a necessary of life. Grain and other vegetables, with the help of milk, cheese, and butte….

The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere dir….

Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness..

The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from….

The rate of profit... is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin..

In a militia, the character of the laborer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier p….

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest. We address….

A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can h….

The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects..

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is s….

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abili….

It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does or does no….

The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with most un….

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 bri….

The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery..

No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money..

All money is a matter of belief..

When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity….