Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty.
Adam Smith

All money is a matter of belief.
Adam Smith

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
Adam Smith

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.
Adam Smith

Defense is superior to opulence.
Adam Smith

Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition.
Adam Smith

Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
Adam Smith

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.
Adam Smith

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

It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.
Adam Smith

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

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

Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.
Adam Smith

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
Adam Smith

Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.
Adam Smith

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

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.
Adam Smith

Poor David Hume is dying fast, but with more real cheerfulness and good humor and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things, than any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.
Adam Smith

Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.
Adam Smith