It Is Not From The Benevolence Of

The Cheapness Of Wine Seems To Be A Cause, Not Of Drunkenness, But Of Sobriety. ...people Are Seldom Guilty Of Excess In What Is Their Daily Fare... On The Contrary, In The Countries Which, Either From Excessive Heat Or Cold, Produce No Grapes, And Where Wine Consequently Is Dear And A Rarity, Drunkenness Is A Common Vice.

By Pursuing His Own Interest (the Individual) Frequently Promotes That Of The Society More Effectually Than When He Really Intends To Promote It. I Have Never Known Much Good Done By Those Who Affected To Trade For The Public Good.

To Found A Great Empire For The Sole Purpose Of Raising Up A People Of Customers, May At First Sight Appear A Project Fit Only For A Nation Of Shopkeepers. It Is, However, A Project Altogether Unfit For A Nation Of Shopkeepers; But Extremely Fit For A Nation Whose Government Is Influenced By Shopkeepers.

The Man Whose Whole Life Is Spent In Performing A Few Simple Operations, Of Which The Effects Are Perhaps Always The Same, Or Very Nearly The Same, Has No Occasion To Exert His Understanding Or To Exercise His Invention In Finding Out Expedients For Removing Difficulties Which Never Occur. He Naturally Loses, Therefore, The Habit Of Such Exertion, And Generally Becomes As Stupid And Ignorant As It Is Possible For A Human Creature To Become.

The Difference Between The Most Dissimilar Characters, Between A Philosopher And A Common Street Porter, For Example, Seems To Arise Not So Much From Nature, As From Habit, Custom, And Education.