Adam Smith Quotes on Virtue
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. This page collects quotes attributed to Adam Smith on the topic of virtue, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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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:
“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.”
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Attributed to Adam Smith:
“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”
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Attributed to Adam Smith:
“Man naturally desires not only to be loved, but to be lovely.”