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Wealth of Nations QUOTES

Wealth of Nations QUOTES

1 " With regard to profusion, the principle which prompts to expense is the passion for present enjoyment; which, though sometimes violent and very difficult to restrained, is in general only momentary and occasional. But the principle which prompts to save, the desire of bettering our condition; a desire which though generally calm and dispassionate, comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us till we go into the grave. In the whole interval which separates those two moments, the is scarce, perhaps, a single instance, in which any man is so perfectly and completely satisfied with his situation, as to be without any wish of alteration or improvement of any kind. An augmentation of fortune is the means by which the greater part of men propose and with to better their condition. It is the means of the most vulgar the most obvious; and the most likely way of augmenting their fortune, is to save and accumulate some part of what the acquire, either regularly and annually, or upon some extraordinary occasion. Though the principle of expense, therefore, prevails in almost all men upon some occasions, and in some men upon all occasions; yet the greater part of men, taking the whole course of their life at an average, the principle of frugality seems not only to predominate, but to predominate vert greatly. "

― Adam Smith , Wealth of Nations

2 " In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of people, comes to be confined to a few very simple simple operations; frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects, too, are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention, in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit to such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgement concerning many of the ordinary duties of private life. "

― Adam Smith , Wealth of Nations