An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume 1 |
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Adam Smith afford ancient annual produce average bank bullion butcher's-meat capital cattle cent century cheap cheaper circulating capital circulation Columella commerce commodities common labour commonly dearer diminish division of labour effectual demand employed employment England Europe exchange expence exportation farmer fertile frequently gold and silver greater quantity increase industry interest Isocrates landlord Lectures less manner manufactures market price master merchant Messance mines money price natural price necessarily necessary occasion ounce paid parish particular pence perhaps Peru pound weight pounds precious metals price of corn price of labour profits of stock proportion purchase quantity of labour quantity of silver raise real price regulated rent revenue rise rude produce scarcity Scotland seems sestertii shillings silver coin society sometimes subsistence sufficient supply supposed things tillage tion town trade value of silver wages of labour wealth Wealth of Nations wheat whole wool workmen
Popular passages
Page 417 - By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security ; and by directing that industry in such a manner as it.s produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
Page 126 - 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 119 - 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 14 - 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 30 - The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
Page xlvi - The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations...
Page 16 - ... the world, and for the first six or eight years of their existence, they were, perhaps, very much alike, and neither their parents nor playfellows could perceive any remarkable difference. About that age, or soon after, they come to be employed in very different occupations. The difference of talents comes then to be taken notice of. and widens by degrees, till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any resemblance.
Page 15 - The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education.
Page 79 - The liberal reward of labour, as it encourages the propagation, so it increases the industry of the common people. The wages of labour are the encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality, improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives. A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength of the labourer, and the comfortable hope of bettering his condition, and of ending his days perhaps in ease and plenty, animates him to exert that strength to the utmost. Where wages...
Page 97 - THE whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock must, in the same neighbourhood, be either perfectly equal or continually tending to equality.