“When a tree, a natural product, is felled, is society put into possession of no greater produce than that of the mere labour of the woodman?”
Source: A Treatise on Political Economy; Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
“The celebrated Adam Smith was the first to point out the immense increase of production, and the superior perfection of products referable to this division of labour.”
Source: A Treatise on Political Economy; Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
“To have never done anything but make the eighteenth part of a pin, is a sorry account for a human being to give of his existence.”
Source: A treatise on political economy
“A shop-keeper in good business is quite as well off as a pedlar that travels the country with his wares on his back. Commercial jealousy is, after all, nothing but prejudice: it is a wild fruit, that will drop of itself when it has arrived at maturity.”
Source: A Treatise on Political Economy; Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
“Freedoms and apprenticeships are likewise expedients of police,not of that wholesome branch of police, whose object is the maintenance of the public and private security, and which is neither costly nor vexatious; but of that sort of police which bad governments employ to preserve or extend their personal authority at any expense.”
Source: A treatise on political economy; or, The production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. Tr. by C.R. Prinsep, with notes
“regulation is useful and proper, when aimed at the prevention of fraud or contrivance, manifestly injurious to other kinds of production, or to the public safety, and not at prescribing the nature of the products and the methods of fabrication.”
Source: A Treatise on Political Economy; Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
“Some writers maintain arithmetic to be only the only sure guide in political economy; for my part, I see so many detestable systems built upon arithmetical statements, that I am rather inclined to regard that science as the instrument of national calamity.”
Source: A treatise on political economy
“Nothing is more dangerous in practice, than an obstinate, unbending adherence to a system, particularly in its application to the wants and errors of mankind.”
Source: A Treatise on Political Economy; Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
“What is the motive which operates in every man's breast to counteract the impulse towards the gratification of his wants and appetites?”
Source: A Treatise on Political Economy: Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
“Valuation is vague and arbitrary, when there is no assurance that it will be generally acquiesced in by others.”
Source: A treatise on political economy: or, The production, distribution and consumption of wealth
