Adam Smith: Father of Economics by Jesse Norman
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A Few Notable Quotes from Adam Smith:
“It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy. What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.” -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.” -- Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people." -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
"The rate of profit... is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin." -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
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The Problem with Inequality, According to Adam Smith by DENNIS C. RASMUSSEN
“Smith also believed that the tendency to sympathize with the rich more easily than the poor makes people less happy. As I am reminded every year by my students, those who encounter Smith’s writings for the first time are usually quite surprised to learn that he associated happiness with tranquility—a lack of internal discord—and insisted not only that money can’t buy happiness but also that the pursuit of riches generally detracts from one’s happiness. He speaks, for instance, of “all that leisure, all that ease, all that careless security, which are forfeited forever” when one attains great wealth, and of “all that toil, all that anxiety, all those mortifications which must be undergone” in the pursuit of it. Happiness consists largely of tranquility, and there is little tranquility to be found in a life of toiling and striving to keep up with the Joneses.”
Related:
The Equalizing Hand: Why Adam Smith Thought the Market Should Produce Wealth Without Steep Inequality