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It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self–love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.
The idea that other people care about themselves is generally a good thing to remember if you want them to do something for you in return.
People do exist who claim not to care about what others think of them, but often it’s a show, a form of protection from the possibility that they are not loved, not respected, and not appreciated.
When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Stay human and subdue the rat within. Life’s not a race. It’s a journey to savor and enjoy.
Smith in his book and with his life is telling us how to live. Seek wisdom and virtue. Behave as if an impartial spectator is watching you. Use the idea of an impartial spectator to step outside yourself and see yourself as others see you. Use that vision to know yourself. Avoid the seductions of money and fame, for they will never satisfy.
Without loveliness, the freedom to buy and sell and choose whom you interact with doesn’t work very well. The more you can rely on trust and the less you depend on the legal system, the better the system will work.
Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
Love locally, trade globally.
