Adam Smith

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.

The uniform, constant and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition … is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration … surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.

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

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

All money is a matter of belief.

The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would … assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.

Life’s three best teachers: heartbreak, empty pocket, failures.

The more a man knows, the more he forgives.

She isn’t the sunrise, she’s the f**king sun.

You must learn that you do not have to be angry just because you have the right to be.

Man minus the Machine is a slave; Man plus the Machine is a freeman.

The less you know, the more you believe.

How beautiful the world was when one looked at it without searching, just looked, simply and innocently.

I would rather be healthy alone, then sick with someone else.

No American ought to be compelled to strike for his rights. He ought to receive them naturally, easily, as a matter of course.

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

You only live but once, and when your died your done, so let the good times roll.

We are what and where we are because we have first imagined it.

Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.