How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness

Hayek thought that extending the norms of the family to society at large would put us on the road to tyranny.

Economics teaches you that making a choice means giving up something. And economics can help you appreciate complexity and how seemingly unrelated actions and people can become entangled.

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 own necessities but of their advantages.

He’s saying that we want to be seen as having integrity, honesty, good principles.

is so much easier to live in a world where we can trust without having to spend too much time, money, and energy verifying the trust we place in others.

classical liberal, meaning a liberal in the original use of the word—someone who valued liberty and favored limited government.

By justice, Smith means the virtue of not injuring or harming others. By prudence, Smith means the virtue of taking care of oneself using both foresight—looking down the road to assess the consequences of our action—and self-control, the ability to give up something today in return for a greater gain in the future:

economics is the study of how to get the most out of life.

Yes, you are profoundly self-interested. But for some reason, you do not always act in what appears to be your self-interest.