Adam Smith

1. The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity and judgement with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.

2. If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered.

3. To judge whether a workman is fit to be employed, may surely be trusted to the discretion of the employers whose interest it so much concerns. The affected anxiety of the law-giver lest they should employ and improper person, is evidently as impertinent as it is oppressive.

4. The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is ... that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence

   The great object of the political economy of every country, is to increase the riches and power of that country.

   Monopoly...is a great enemy to good management

   The desire of food is limited in every man by the narrow capacity of the human stomach; but the desire of the conveniences and ornaments of building, dress, equipage and household furniture, seems to have no limit or certain boundary

   [Value] is adjusted...not by any accurate measure, but by the higgling and bargaining of the market, according to that sort of rough equality which, though not exact, is sufficient for carrying on the business of common life.

   Capitals are increased by parsimony, and diminished by prodigality and misconduct

   A great empire has been established for the sole purpose of raising up a nation of customers who should be obliged to buy from the shops or our different producers all the goods which these could supply them. For the sake of that little enhancement of price which this monopoly might afford our producers, the home-consumers have been burdened with the whole expense of maintaining and defending that empire. For this purpose, and for this purpose only, in the last two wars, more than a hundred and seventy millions has been contracted over and above all that had been expended for the same purpose in former wards. The interest of this debt alone is not only grater than the whole extraordinary profit, which, if it ever could be pretended, was made by the monopoly of the colony trade, but than the whole value of that trade, or than the whole value of the goods, which at an average have been annually exported to the colonies.