No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Economists
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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Adam Smith's Other Quotes
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
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.
The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.
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.
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
Related Quotes
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
-- Jane Austen
A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
-- Henrik Ibsen
Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
-- Victor Hugo
For every point I'm given, I'll have earned two.
-- Jack Johnson
Follow heaven and forsake the self.
-- Natsume Sōseki
The benefit morality gives us is economy of time and effort. The damage it does is the complete paralysis of conscience.
-- Ryūnosuke Akutagawa