Edinburgh, Scotland…Adam Smith 16 June, 1723 – 17 July 1790. Author of Wealth of Nations and father of modern economics.

“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”

“It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does, or does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his interest…either to neglect it altogether, or…to perform it in [a] careless and slovenly a manner…”

“If [justice] is removed, the great, the immense fabric of human society, that fabric which to raise and support seems in this world if I may say so has the peculiar and darling care of Nature, must in a moment crumble into atoms.”

“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.”

“Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this – no dog exchanges bones with another.”

“What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?”

“Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.”