Hatred and anger are the greatest poison to the happiness of a good mind. There is, in the very feeling of those passions, something harsh, jarring, and convulsive, something that tears and distracts the breast, and is altogether destructive of that composure and tranquility of mind which is so necessary to happiness, and which is best promoted by the contrary passions of gratitude and love.

— 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, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.

— Adam Smith

If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least. . . .Abstain from robbing and murdering one another. So beneficence is less essential than justice is to the existence of society; alack of beneficence will make a society uncomfortable, butte prevalence of injustice will utterly destroy it.

— Adam Smith

I have always considered David Hume as approaching as nearly the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will allow.

— Adam Smith

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

— Adam Smith

In regard to the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates as simple interest does, the rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. Furthermore, they complain only of those of other people.

— Adam Smith

In the common degree of the moral, there is no virtue. Virtue is excellence.

— 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.

— Adam Smith

Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things.

— Adam Smith

Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.

— Adam Smith