Adam Smith

"To be the object of the contempt and abhorrence of the world is one of the most dreadful calamities that can befall a man."

"In commercial societies, the division of labour naturally produces both wealth and a certain narrowness of mind."

"The man of principle stands firm against the tempests of popular opinion and maintains his integrity."

"A society that rewards vice and punishes virtue cannot long endure."

"The love of our country is often a stronger principle than the love of ourselves."

"The real foundations of theology are in the heart of man; it is the natural sentiment of religion that teaches us virtue."

"In the great book of nature, every man may read his own destiny if he is wise enough to understand the language."

"The pursuit of happiness is the great business of life; but we often mistake the means for the end."

"The real price of everything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it."

"Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and tolerable administration of justice."

"The great mercantile republic does not exist for the sake of the merchants, but the merchants exist for the sake of the republic."

"Magnanimity is the great ornament of virtue."

"The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments."

"The regard which the proud man is disposed to pay to the opinions and feelings of others, is in consequence of his regard for his own."

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."

"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 animals."

"The most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its inhabitants."

"The effort to guard against evil is not always as efficient as the effort to promote good."

"The administration of justice is the great instrument for cementing social union."

"Revenge is certainly natural to mankind, but it is not originally pointed out to us by the real situation of our circumstances."

"The great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people."

"The consciousness that his conduct is agreeable to the great judge of the universe is a pleasure which none can take from him."

"Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love."

"To feel much for others and little for ourselves is the perfection of human nature."

"The wise man does not give the right answer, he possesses the art of discovering it."

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

"The theory of moral sentiments is not a system of arbitrary rules but a science of human sympathy."

"Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life."

"The regard of our fellow creatures may be considered as the most valuable of all possessions."

"Justice is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice of human society."