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.
Economists
Born in Scotland in 1723, Adam Smith
Born in Scotland in 1723, Adam Smith was a moral philosopher who founded modern economics. The Wealth of Nations (1776) showed how self-interest and division of labor generate prosperity through market mechanisms.
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Born in Scotland in 1723, Adam Smith's Other Quotes
The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
Every individual... neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it... 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.
Related Quotes
To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment would result in the demolition of society.
-- Born 1886
Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.
-- Born in Cambridge in 1883, Keynes