An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume 2

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S. Doig and A. Stirling, Lackington, Allen and Company, Cradock and Joy, and T. Hamilton, London, and Wilson and Son, York, 1811 - Economics

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Page 243 - It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy.
Page 105 - Every increase or diminution of capital, therefore, naturally tends to increase or diminish the real quantity of industry, the number of productive hands, and consequently the exchangeable value of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, the real wealth and revenue of all its inhabitants.
Page 243 - What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every individual, it is evident, can, in his local situation, judge much better than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him. The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals...
Page 365 - The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often incumbers its operations...
Page 239 - Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society...
Page 121 - Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten per cent. the greater part of the money which Avas to be lent, would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who alone would be willing to give this high interest. Sober people, who will give for the use of money no more than a part of what they are likely to make by the use of it, would not venture into the competition.
Page 488 - The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind.
Page 156 - They are founded upon the most absurd of all suppositions, the supposition that every successive generation of men have not an equal right to the earth, and to all that it possesses; but that the property of the present generation should be restrained and regulated according to the fancy of those who died perhaps five hundred years ago.
Page 94 - Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the increase of capital. Industry, indeed, provides the subject which parsimony accumulates. But whatever industry might acquire, if parsimony did not save and store up, the capital would never be the greater.
Page 230 - It carries out that surplus part of the produce of their land and labor for which there is no demand among them and brings back in return for it something else for which there is a demand. It gives a value to their superfluities by exchanging them for something else which may satisfy a part of their wants and increase their enjoyments.

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