Adam Smith

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.

In the midst of all the exactions of government … It is this effort, protected by law and allowed by liberty to exert itself in the manner that is most advantageous, which has maintained the progress.

The profusion of government … [has] retarded the natural progress.

[Governments are] …without exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.

Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality… for one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor.

There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.

Sometimes you have to make the right decision, and sometimes you have to make the decision right.

The best way is always the simplest. The attics of the world are cluttered up with complicated failures.

That is what we are put in the world for, to get experience and to help others get it. It is the one thing no one can take away from us.

I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

Do not fear your enemies. The worst they can do is kill you. Do not fear friends. At worst, they may betray you. Fear those who do not care; they neither kill nor betray, but betrayal and murder exists because of their silent consent.

Right now, make a list of what you admire about yourself- don’t stop until you’ve filled a page. Sit and relish each quality and accomplishment. When you remember how much you have to be proud of, you don’t need to envy others. Instead of wallowing in your jealousy, use your friends’ accomplishments as inspiration to pursue the life you want.

I’m beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

When I’m feeling anxious or depressed, I do find it helps to reach for a pen and paper. There is something about writing things down, that hand-eye combination, that makes me feel calmer.

Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.

I share no man’s opinions; I have my own.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.

America is one of the few places in the world where a poorperson can still be obese.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.