An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume 1 |
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Common terms and phrases
afford altogether ancient annual produce bank Bank of England bills of exchange bullion butcher's meat carried cattle cent century cheaper circulating capital coin commerce commonly consumed consumption continually counties of Scotland dearer diminish division of labour employed employment England Europe exchange expense farmer fertile foreign frequently gold and silver greater quantity increase industry interest land and labour landlord less maintain manner manufactures master ment merchant mines money price natural price naturally necessarily necessary neighbourhood occasion ounce paid paper money particular perhaps Peru pound weight pounds precious metals price of corn price of labour productive labour profits of stock proportion proprietor purchase quantity of labour quantity of silver raise real price regulated rent revenue rise rude produce Scotland seems seldom sestertii shillings society sometimes sort subsistence sufficient supply supposed surplus tillage tivated town trade value of silver wages of labour wealth wheat whole workmen
Popular passages
Page 146 - People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or in some contrivance to raise prices.
Page 137 - The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.
Page 16 - 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. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.
Page 55 - As soon as the land of any country has all become , private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
Page 160 - England, where it is often more difficult for a poor man to pass the artificial boundary of a parish, than an arm of the sea or a ridge of high mountains, natural boundaries which sometimes separate very distinctly different rates of wages in other countries.
Page 377 - Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the increase of capital. Industry, indeed, provides the subject which parsimony accumulates. But whatever industry might acquire, if parsimony did not save and store up, the capital would never be the greater.
Page 313 - ... into three parts; the rent of land, the wages of labour, and the profits of stock: and constitutes a revenue to three different orders of people; to those who live by rent...
Page 87 - But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
Page 419 - The consideration of his own private profit is the sole motive which determines the owner of any capital to employ it either in agriculture, in manufactures, or in some particular branch of the wholesale or retail trade.
Page 18 - But without the disposition to truck, barter, and exchange, every man must have procured to himself every necessary and conveniency of life which he wanted. All must have had the same duties to perform, and the same work to do, and there could have been no such difference of employment as could alone give occasion to any great difference of talents.