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.
Browse Adam Smith by topic
Adam Smith on Death
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“Poor David Hume is dying very fast, but with great cheerfulness and good humour and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things then any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.”
Letter to Alexander Wedderburn 14 August 1776. The Correspondence of Adam Smith edited by E.C. Mossner and Ian Simpson Ross, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press 1986. The Future Hope in Adam Smith’s System , Paul Oslington
Adam Smith on Justice
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“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”
Chapter VIII, p. 94. -
“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”
Section II, Chap. III. -
“To desire you to read my book over and mark all the corrections you would wish me to make...would oblige me greatly: I know how much I shall be benefitted and I shall at the same time preserve the pretious right of private judgement for the sake of which our forefathers kicked out the Pope and the Pretender. I believe you to be much more infalliable than the Pope, but as I am a Protestant my conscience makes me scruple to submit to any unscriptural authority.”
Letter to William Strahan (4 April 1760), quoted in Adam Smith, The Correspondence of Adam Smith , eds. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross (1987), pp. 67–68 -
“I perfectly agree with your Lordship too, that to crush the Industry of so great and so fine a province of the empire, in order to favour the monopoly of some particular towns in Scotland or England, is equally unjust and impolitic. The general opulence and improvement of Ireland might certainly, under proper management, afford much greater resources to the Government, than can ever be drawn from a few mercantile or manufacturing towns.”
Letter to Henry Dundas (1 November 1779), quoted in Adam Smith, The Correspondence of Adam Smith , eds. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross (1987), p. 241
Adam Smith on Knowledge
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Attributed to Adam Smith:
“Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.”
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“To desire you to read my book over and mark all the corrections you would wish me to make...would oblige me greatly: I know how much I shall be benefitted and I shall at the same time preserve the pretious right of private judgement for the sake of which our forefathers kicked out the Pope and the Pretender. I believe you to be much more infalliable than the Pope, but as I am a Protestant my consc”
Letter to William Strahan (4 April 1760), quoted in Adam Smith, The Correspondence of Adam Smith , eds. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross (1987), pp. 67–68 -
“I perfectly agree with your Lordship too, that to crush the Industry of so great and so fine a province of the empire, in order to favour the monopoly of some particular towns in Scotland or England, is equally unjust and impolitic. The general opulence and improvement of Ireland might certainly, under proper management, afford much greater resources to the Government, than can ever be drawn from ”
Letter to Henry Dundas (1 November 1779), quoted in Adam Smith, The Correspondence of Adam Smith , eds. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross (1987), p. 241 -
“Section I, Chap. III.”
Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither have, nor can have, any other way of judging about them.
Adam Smith on Love
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Attributed to Adam Smith:
“Man naturally desires not only to be loved, but to be lovely.”
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“Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither have, nor can have, any other way of judging about them.”
Section I, Chap. III.
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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“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.”
Chapter IV, p. 448. -
“Defence is of much more importance than opulence.”
Chapter II
Adam Smith on Virtue
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“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.”
Section I, Chap. I. -
“The Union was a measure from which infinite Good has been derived to this country.”
Letter to William Strahan (4 April 1760), quoted in Adam Smith, The Correspondence of Adam Smith , eds. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross (1987), p. 68