Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by George Goodman (American Economist)

George Jerome Waldo Goodman (b.1930) was an American author and economics broadcast commentator, best known by his pseudonym Adam Smith. He also wrote fiction under the name “George Goodman”.

Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) READ: Works by George Goodman

Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so
George Goodman
Topics: Welfare

Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for defense, and for defense only; it is the safeguard of justice, and the security of innocence.
George Goodman
Topics: Hate, Hatred

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
George Goodman
Topics: Virtue

The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.
George Goodman
Topics: Business

Man is an animal that makes bargains; no other animal does this—one dog does not change a bone with another.
George Goodman
Topics: Humankind, Humanity, Man

The robot is going to lose. Not by much. But when the final score is tallied, flesh and blood is going to beat the damn monster.
George Goodman
Topics: Computers

By pursuing his own interest [every 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.
George Goodman
Topics: Welfare

That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.
George Goodman
Topics: Morals, Respect

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
George Goodman
Topics: Science, Scientists

Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
George Goodman
Topics: Perception

Those who live by numbers can also perish by them and it is a terrifying thing to have an adding machine write an epitaph, either way.
George Goodman
Topics: Money

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.
George Goodman
Topics: Progress

Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.
George Goodman

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.
George Goodman
Topics: Humankind, Humanity

Defense is superior to opulence.
George Goodman
Topics: Defense

The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
George Goodman
Topics: Worth, Wealth

Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty.
George Goodman
Topics: Chance

A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, unites in his own person the three different characters, of landlord, farmer, and labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the first, the profit of the second, and the wages of the third.
George Goodman
Topics: Capitalism

With the great part of rich people, the chief employment of riches consists in the parade of riches.
George Goodman
Topics: Riches, Wealth, Enjoyment

The machines that are first invented to perform any particular movement are always the most complex, and succeeding artists generally discover that, with fewer wheels, with fewer principles of motion, than had originally been employed, the same effects may be more easily produced. The first systems, in the same manner, are always the most complex.
George Goodman

Vanity is the foundation of the most ridiculous and contemptible vices—the vices of affectation and common lying.
George Goodman

The mind is so rarely disturbed, but that the company of friend will restore it to some degree of tranquility and sedateness.
George Goodman
Topics: Mind, The Mind

Though the encouragement of exportation and the discouragement of importation are the two great engines by which the mercantile system proposes to enrich every country, yet with regard to some particular commodities it seems to follow an opposite plan: to discourage exportation and to encourage importation. Its ultimate object, however, it pretends, is always the same, to enrich the country by the advantageous balance of trade. It discourages the exportation of the materials of manufacture, and of the instruments of trade, in order to give our own workmen an advantage, and to enable them to undersell those of other nations in all foreign markets; and by restraining, in this manner, the exportation of a few commodities of no great price, it proposes to occasion a much greater and more valuable exportation of others. It encourages the importation of the materials of manufacture in order that our own people may be enabled to work them up more cheaply, and thereby prevent a greater and more valuable importation of the manufactured commodities.
George Goodman

It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by statuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will
George Goodman
Topics: Welfare

To feel much for others, and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfish, and exercise our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature.
George Goodman
Topics: Benevolence

The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.
George Goodman
Topics: Aspirations

Man, an animal that makes bargains.
George Goodman
Topics: Agreement

They are the most frivolous and superficial of mankind, who can be much delighted with that praise which they themselves know to be altogether unmerited.
George Goodman
Topics: Praise

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 that is governed by shopkeepers.
George Goodman

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 necessities but of their advantages.
George Goodman
Topics: Self-interest

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