Adam Smith

"Man naturally desires not only to be loved, but to be lovely."

"The produce of the soil feeds, clothes and lodges every one of the number of inhabitants."

"Man naturally desires to be approved of, and to avoid disapproval."

"It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can."

"The desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, believed, approved of, and admired is one of the strongest of all our natural desires."

"It is impossible that one man should ever naturally be required to love another as himself."

"The accommodation of some of the most important rules of morality has been the effect of a very few refinements upon the rude practice of mankind."

"We cannot consider the whole extent of our knowledge without reckoning upon mathematics."

"A man who gives himself up entirely to the gratification of his most frivolous desires is despised and contemned."

"The greatest improvement in the condition of the laboring poor must come from their own exertions."

"The natural course of things draws towards equality."

"It is not by force that the magistrate ordinarily governs; it is by the slow and gradual adoption of the rules which he prescribes."

"The regard which the great man naturally conceives for his own rank and dignity is the source of the respect which he demands from others."

"The real wealth of a nation is the annual product of its labor."

"Wisdom and virtue are by no means so permanently seated in any individual."

"The beauty, grace, and ease of the manners of the great are the objects of universal admiration."

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

"The great object of the political institutions of Great Britain seems to be to maintain certain balances and checks."

"The best policy of the greater part of those who make poor laws, is to take no notice."

"The revenue of the state is the estate of the statesman."

"The man who barely abstains from hurting his neighbor has little merit."

"Man is anxious about the future; but nature seems to have given him the ability to hope."

"The most agreeable reflection of the good is that he has not been the sole cause of its production."

"The regard which we have for the persons of the great and wise is produced by sympathy."

"The rules of justice are the rules of natural liberty."

"The general security and happiness of society is of more importance than any splendid achievement."

"An adversity which has been more easily and more completely overcome, is thought the more honourable."

"It is the nature of man to repine at inequality."

"All for ourselves and nothing for other people is, at all times and in all cases, an odious maxim."

"It is the systems of natural liberty which the division of labour affords."