"Politics are collective, and, like any collective activity, they are always tending towards brown-shirted goose steps on the one hand or red-flagged brain washes on the other", Parliament of Whores, Preface to the British Edition
"Foreigners believe in individualism, but we are individuals. We aren't the servants of any state. On the contrary, the state serves us. And poorly, too. I think we should give it notice. For foreigners the state is an entity. For us it's an appliance, like a gas furnace. And to spend all day thinking about central heating is an odd thing to do except in very cold weather", Parliament of Whores, Preface to the British Edition
[Without trade restrictions] "the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man... is left perfectly free to pursue his own interests in his own way... The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty [for which] no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the interest of the society", The Wealth of Nations, Book IV Ch.IX
"The man of system... is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it... He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it", The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VI, Section II, Ch.II
"The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition... is so powerful, 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 law too often encumbers its operations", The Wealth of Nations, Book IV Ch.V
"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", Lectures
"Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them", The Wealth of Nations, Book V Ch.I Part II
"The bounty to the white-herring fishery is a tonnage bounty; and is proportioned to the burden of the ship, not to her diligence or success in the fishery; and it has, I am afraid, been too common for vessels to fit out for the sole purpose of catching, not the fish, but the bounty", The Wealth of Nations, Book IV Ch.V
"Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state", The Wealth of Nations, Book V Ch.II Part II
"The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man how had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it", The Wealth of Nations, Book IV Ch.II