A Quote by Adam Smith

Among civilized and thriving nations, on the contrary, though a great number of people do no labor at all, many of whom consume the produce of ten times, frequently of a hundred times more labour than the greater part of those who work; yet the produce of the whole labour of the society is so great, that all are often abundantly supplied, and a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and conveniencies of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire.

Adam Smith

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Acquire Among Any Civilized Consume Contrary Enjoy Even Frequently Frugal Great Greater Hundred Hundred Times Industrious Labor Labour Life Lowest Many May More Nations Number Often On The Contrary Order Part People Poorest Possible Produce Savage Share Society Ten Ten Times Than Those Though Thriving Times Whole Whom Work Workman

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Adam Smith
Scottish - Economist
June 5, 1723 - July 17, 1790

The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.

Adam Smith

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.

Adam Smith

It is not the actual greatness of national wealth, but its continual increase, which occasions a rise in the wages of labour. It is not, accordingly, in the richest countries, but in the most thriving, or in those which are growing rich the fastest, that the wages of labour are highest. England is certainly, in the present times, a much richer country than any part of North America. The wages of labour, however, are much higher in North America than in any part of England.

Adam Smith

And if the civilized man's pursuits are no worthier than the savage's, if he is employed the greater part of his life in obtaininggross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he have a better dwelling than the former?

Henry David Thoreau

When a tree, a natural product, is felled, is society put into possession of no greater produce than that of the mere labour of the woodman?

Jean-Baptiste Say

This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.

Adam Smith

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him whose. There's no evidence that more people with more skills would produce more jobs. There's a great deal of evidence that they produce more competition for the jobs that exist, and in turn, drive down the cost of labour. Nothing pleases a corporation more than having five people compete for the same job. Competitiveness means good times for machines, not workers, because our tax systems privilege machines over workers.A lost job can put a smile on any shareholder's face.

Eric Reguly

Opulent, civilized, and industrious nations, are greater consumers than poor ones, because they are infinitely greater producers.

Jean-Baptiste Say

Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding, can expect only to improve a single science. In every other part of learning, they must be content to follow opinions, which they are not able to examine; and, even in that which they claim as peculiarly their own, can seldom add more than some small particle of knowledge, to the hereditary stock devolved to them from ancient times, the collective labour of a thousand intellects.

Samuel Johnson

The tendency of taxation is, to create a class of persons, who do not labour: to take from those who do labour the produce of that labour, and to give it to those who do not labour.

William Cobbett

If delight may provoke men's labour, what greater delights is there then to behold the earth as apparelled with plants, as with a robe of imbroidered worke, set with orient pearles, and garnished with great diversitie of rare and costly jewels? The delight is great but the use greater, and joyned often with necessitie.

John Gerard

A too great disproportion among the citizens weakens any state. Every person, if possible, ought to enjoy the fruits of his labour, in a full possession of all the necessities, and many of the conveniences of life. No one can doubt, but such an equality is most suitable to human nature, and diminishes much less from the happiness of the rich than it adds to that of the poor.

David Hume

Our Lord came to the aid of each great tribulation with a special devotion. The present and future tribulations of the Church and of nations are greater than at any other period, and this persecution is more dangerous than those of previous times. Hence, the devotion which God sends to the succor of His Church and of the nations at the present time is the devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist. It is the highest of all devotions.

Pope Leo XIII

In executing an Artful Strategy: When ten times greater, surround them; When five times greater, attack them; When two times greater, scatter them. If the opponent is ready to challenge: When fewer in number, be ready to evade them; When unequal to the match, be ready to avoid them. Even when the smaller opponents have a strong position, the larger opponent will capture them.

Sun Tzu

If the land was divided among all the inhabitants of a country, so that each of them possessed precisely the quantity necessary for his support, and nothing more; it is evident that all of them being equal, no one would work for another. Neither would any of them possess wherewith to pay another for his labour, for each person having only such a quantity of land as was necessary to produce a subsistence, would consume all he should gather, and would not have any thing to give in exchange for the labour of others.

Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune

Civilization does not engross all the virtues of humanity: she has not even her full share of them. They flourish in greater abundance and attain greater strength among many barbarous people. The hospitality of the wild Arab, the courage of the North American Indian, and the faithful friendships of some of the Polynesian nations, far surpass any thing of a similar kind among the polished communities of Europe.

Herman Melville

A Quote by Adam Smith

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