Browse 6 quotations connecting Adam Smith with Humanity, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Sources represented here include The Theory of Moral Sentiments, The Wealth of Nations.
“Humanity does not desire to be great, but to be beloved.”
Smith contrasts humane character with status-seeking by presenting affection and social trust, rather than greatness itself, as the fitting reward of humanity.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part III, in Smith’s discussion of the rewards commonly associated with industry, truth, justice, and humanity.
“Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice.”
The social metaphor makes justice structurally essential: Smith argues that a community may survive limited generosity but not continual mutual injury.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part II, Section II, Chapter III; the sentence contrasts justice as society’s foundation with beneficence as its ornament.
“We run not only to congratulate the successful, but to condole with the afflicted.”
Shared life includes both celebration and consolation: Smith treats sympathetic participation in another person’s sorrow as a basic feature of social feeling.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part I discussion of sympathy with joy and affliction; represented by the 1777 Dublin edition in Project Gutenberg #67363.
“Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbour.”
Smith distinguishes the minimum restraint required by justice from positive generosity: justice first prevents injury, even when it does not itself supply active beneficence.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part II, Section II, discussion comparing justice with beneficence and the obligations that society may enforce.
“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others.”
Smith opens his moral theory by arguing that human beings possess capacities for fellow-feeling even when another person’s welfare offers no material advantage.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part I, Section I, Chapter I “Of Sympathy”; represented by Project Gutenberg’s 1777 Dublin edition.
“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”
Smith rejects judging a society as broadly prosperous when the majority of the people who sustain it remain poor and unable to live tolerably well.
The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter VIII, “Of the Wages of Labour,” Project Gutenberg #3300. Smith follows this sentence by arguing that workers who feed, clothe and lodge society should receive enough of the produce of their labour to be tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.