Individual Ambition Serves The Common Good.

We Are Delighted To Find A Person Who Values Us As We Value Ourselves, And Distinguishes Us From The Rest Of Mankind, With An Attention Not Unlike That With Which We Distinguish Ourselves.

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.

Every Individual Necessarily Labors To Render The Annual Revenue Of Society As Great As He Can. He Generally Neither Intends To Promote The Public Interest, Nor Knows How Much He Is Promoting It. He Intends Only His Own Gain, And He Is, In This, As In Many Other Cases, Led By An Invisible Hand To Promote An End Which Was Not Part Of His Intention.

In This Consists The Difference Between The Character Of A Miser And That Of A Person Of Exact Economy And Assiduity. The One Is Anxious About Small Matters For Their Own Sake; The Other Attends To Them Only In Consequence Of The Scheme Of Life Which He Has Laid Down To Himself.

By Pursuing His Own Interest (the 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.