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Who really said it

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner

Written by Adam Smith Baptised 16 June 1723 – 17 July 1790 · Scottish moral philosopher & political economist
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Genuine, and easy to pin down: the line is Adam Smith’s own English, from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter 2. No translation stands between you and the words — though the sentence does not end where most people stop quoting it, and the tail is the part that gets rewritten.

Last verified 15 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner” — Adam Smith · Verbatim: “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.”

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Provenance

The source

Work
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Location
Book I, Chapter 2 — “Of the Principle which gives occasion to the Division of Labour”
First published
1776, London
Language
Written in English — no translation involved

Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this: Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. 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. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Book I, Ch. 2

The famous sentence is the second one. Note what surrounds it: Smith is describing bargaining — the art of persuading someone that helping you is worth their while — not praising greed. The paragraph ends on beggars — and the dog that cannot strike a fair bargain with another dog has already appeared earlier in the chapter, in Smith’s setup about the propensity to truck, barter and exchange.

Read Book I, Chapter 2 on Wikisource

How we verified this

  • 1776 — the primary text. The sentence appears in Book I, Chapter 2 of The Wealth of Nations, in the paragraph on bargaining. You can read the chapter in full on Wikisource ↗, and the whole book in Project Gutenberg’s edition ↗, which carries the same passage.
  • The reference works agree. Wikiquote ↗ lists it in its sourced Wealth of Nations (1776) section, cited to Chapter II, p. 19 — not under “Disputed” or “Misattributed.” The Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty ↗ cites it to Book I, Chapter 2 of the Cannan edition, volume 1.
  • Where it goes wrong is the ending. Quote-aggregator pages such as QuoteDB ↗ print “their regard to their own self-interest” — a word Smith did not write there. Writing in Econlib ↗, Jacob Sider Jost notes that scholars and textbooks silently amend Smith’s wording to “self-interest,” flattening a passage built on verbs of judgement (“expect,” “regard”) and persuasion (“address,” “talk”).
Public domain

The Wealth of Nations was first published in London in 1776, more than 150 years before the 1931 US public-domain cutoff, and Adam Smith died in 1790. Smith wrote in English, so there is no translator’s copyright layered on top — the words you see are his own, and the text is free to quote, reprint, and adapt.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The part that gets rewritten

The author is not in doubt — Adam Smith wrote this, and the primary text is a click away. What goes wrong is subtler and more common: the sentence gets a word swapped, gets cut in half, or gets read as an argument it is not making.

“their own self-interest” Misquote

Smith wrote “but from their regard to their own interest.” The word self-interest does not appear in that clause. Aggregator pages including QuoteDB ↗ print the altered version, and Sider Jost notes in Econlib ↗ that the amendment happens silently even in scholarship.

The half-sentence version Truncation

Most quotations stop at “that we expect our dinner,” dropping the clause that says what we do expect it from — and dropping the next sentence entirely: “We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love…” That sentence is about persuasion, which is Smith’s actual subject. Read the whole paragraph on Wikisource ↗.

“Smith said greed is good” Misreading

The line is routinely deployed as proof that Smith thought avarice drives prosperity. McKenzie’s survey of Smith myths in Econlib ↗ addresses the misconception that “markets are activated exclusively by people’s self-interest,” noting that Smith tied the pursuit of self-interest to qualities like economy, industry and discretion — and to markets’ dependence on trust and trustworthiness.

The quote is real. The sentence is not. Smith’s actual words — “but from their regard to their own interest” — are printed in Book I, Chapter 2 ↗ and cited the same way by Wikiquote ↗. If you are going to quote the most famous line in economics, quote the end of it too.

Context

Why it mattered

Smith was not writing a hymn to greed. He was solving a puzzle he had just set himself: how does a society in which one person makes pins and another bakes bread feed everybody, when nobody has the time or affection to look after strangers? His answer was that you do not need affection — you need a bargain that leaves both sides better off. The butcher is not your friend, and does not have to be.

The sentence became the most quoted line in economics precisely because it can be cut in half. Read whole, in the paragraph about bargaining and beggars, it is an argument about persuasion and mutual advantage from a man who had already written a book arguing that people naturally care about the fortunes of others. Read as a fragment, it becomes a licence for selfishness that Smith never issued.

The butcher is not your friend, and does not have to be. That was the point — not that friendship is worthless.

Read the full story

The chapter title is a clue most quoters never see: “Of the Principle which gives occasion to the Division of Labour.” Smith is explaining why humans specialise at all. His answer is the propensity to truck, barter and exchange — something he says no animal does. The butcher line is the illustration, not the thesis.

In Econlib ↗, McKenzie makes the point directly: taken “in isolation from all else Smith wrote, his theory of markets does appear to lack a moral foundation.” The isolation is the problem, not the sentence.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Work Purpose

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Ch. 2en.wikisource.org

The primary text. The quote sits in the bargaining paragraph, between the “Give me that which I want” line and the sentence about beggars.
The Wealth of Nations (full text)gutenberg.org

Project Gutenberg’s complete free edition of the book, carrying the same passage — useful for reading the chapter’s full argument about the division of labour.
Adam Smith — sourced quotationsen.wikiquote.org

Lists the line under its sourced Wealth of Nations (1776) section, cited to Chapter II, p. 19 — not under Disputed or Misattributed.
Adam Smith on the Butcher, the Brewer, and the Bakeroll.libertyfund.org

The Liberty Fund’s quotation page, citing the passage to Book I, Chapter 2 of the Cannan edition, volume 1.
Bargaining with the Butcher, Baker, and Brewereconlib.org

Sider Jost on how textbooks silently amend “interest” to “self-interest” and drop Smith’s verbs of judgement and persuasion. The best account of the misquote.
Adam Smith: Myths and Realitieseconlib.org

McKenzie on the myth that Smith thought markets run on greed alone, and why reading this passage in isolation distorts him.
Adam Smithen.wikipedia.org

Biography: baptised 16 June 1723, died 17 July 1790; Scottish economist and philosopher; The Wealth of Nations published 1776.

The true author

Who was Adam Smith?

Adam Smith

Baptised 1723 – 1790 · Scottish moral philosopher & political economist

Adam Smith was a Scottish moral philosopher who taught logic and moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, tutored the Duke of Buccleuch, and ended his career as a commissioner of customs in Scotland. He is remembered almost entirely for The Wealth of Nations (1776), which sold out its first edition in six months — but he considered himself a moral philosopher first, and his earlier The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) opens by arguing that human beings care about the fortunes of others. The butcher-and-baker line is the most quoted sentence he ever wrote, and the one most often severed from that larger project.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London, 1776. Book I, Chapter 2 (“Of the Principle which gives occasion to the Division of Labour”).

MLA (9th ed.)

Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London, 1776.

APA (7th ed.)

Smith, A. (1776). An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.

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