Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither... intends to promote the publick interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.... He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The machines that are first invented to perform any particular movement are always the most complex, and succeeding artists genera...lly discover that, with fewer wheels, with fewer principles of motion, than had originally been employed, the same effects may be more easily produced. The first systems, in the same manner, are always the most complex.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the... contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is th...e great instrument of ambition.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for... a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers, but extremely fit for a nation that is governed by shopkeepers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
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. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquirin...g it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
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.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another ... is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of a...nimals.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eyes is never... so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »