Adam Smith Quotes
Adam Smith was an 18th-century Scottish moral philosopher and political economist, a leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, and the founder of modern economics. His 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments developed an account of morality grounded in sympathy and the impartial spectator. The quotes below are attributed to Adam Smith, organized by topic.
Adam Smith on Justice
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Attributed to Adam Smith:
“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”
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Attributed to Adam Smith:
“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”
Adam Smith on Knowledge
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Attributed to Adam Smith:
“Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.”
Adam Smith on Love
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Attributed to Adam Smith:
“Man naturally desires not only to be loved, but to be lovely.”
Adam Smith on Politics
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Attributed to 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.”
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Attributed to Adam Smith:
“All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”
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Attributed to Adam Smith:
“Defence is of much more importance than opulence.”
Adam Smith on Virtue
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Attributed to Adam Smith:
“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him.”