Harold J. Laski: “Adam Smith is the supreme representative of a tradition which saw that release effected by individual effort.”

Where mistakes are made, where there is corruption, or dishonesty, or abuse, it can be brought home forthwith to its authors.

When I obey the state, I obey the best part of myself.

But we cannot understand the eighteenth century, or its theories, unless we realize that its temper was still dominantly aristocratic.

The contract is thus not general as with Hobbes but limited and specific in character.