The Wealth of Nations Quotes

With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.

Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions.

When the trade or practice becomes thoroughly established and well known, the competition reduces them to the level of other trades.

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.

There is no art which one government sooner learns of another, than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.

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

The value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin.

The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects too are, perhaps, always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.

The division of labour, however, so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour.

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

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.

Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.