Adam Smith, 1723 - 1790
Engraving from 1787 portrait by James Tassie
Born: baptized 16 June 1723 (O. S. 5 June), Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, UK
Died: 14 July 1790, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Smith's father, also named Adam Smith, died six months before Smith was born. He was abducted by gypsies when he was four but quickly reunited with his mother. He attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy and entered the University of Glasgow at fourteen to study moral philosophy. He was given the Snell Exhibition, a scholarship for Glasgow students to study at Balliol College, Oxford, an experience that was productive only in terms of access to the Oxford library. He returned to Edinburgh and delivered a series of lectures, meeting David Hume with whom he became close friends. In 1751 he was given a professorship at Glasgow University, teaching logic for a year and becoming the head of Moral Philosophy the next year when the previous professor died. After publication of The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1959, students left other schools to come to Glasgow to take his classes. The university gave him the Doctor of Laws degree in 1762, but the following year he accepted a position tutoring the young Duke of Buccleuch for about four years, a period spent mostly in Europe. A life pension of 300 pounds was enough for him to devote his time to The Wealth of Nations which was published in 1776. Considered the first book of economics, he argued that a combination of self interest and open trading provided the best results for all members of the community, introduced the concept of "the invisible hand", and promoted the concept of division of labor or specialization. On that point he argued that ten persons each making pins from start to finish could make 20 pins each per day, while if they divided the eighteen components steps and each specialized, they could together make 48,000 pins each day, a 240-fold increase. From 1778 Smith was a commissioner of customs, in 1783 he was one of the founding members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and he was given the honorary position of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. He died after a painful but unknown illness, disappointed that he had not accomplished more.
Biography from Wikipedia and Library of Economics and Liberty
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Adam Smith quotes:
Quotes found : 67 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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- A great stock, though with small profits, generally increases faster than a small stock with great profits. Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have a little, it is often easier to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little. permalink
Adam Smith - Book I, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. permalink
Adam Smith - Book I, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - A man must be perfectly crazy who, where there is tolerable security, does not employ all the stock which he commands,... permalink
Adam Smith - Book II, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country. permalink
Adam Smith - Book III, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty. permalink
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. permalink
Adam Smith - Book III, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - All money is a matter of belief. permalink
Adam Smith - All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist. permalink
Adam Smith - Book V, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - 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. permalink
Adam Smith - Book I, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - Bounty and hospitality very seldom lead to extravagance; though vanity almost always does. permalink
Adam Smith - Book V, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality. permalink
Adam Smith - Book V, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about. permalink
Adam Smith - Book III, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all. permalink
Adam Smith - Book V, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. permalink
Adam Smith - Book IV, The Wealth of Nations (1776) - Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity. permalink
Adam Smith - Book I, The Wealth of Nations (1776)
Quotes found : 67 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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