Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part IV, Chapter I, Paragraph 10.
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[The rich] consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity...they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.

— Adam on Invisible hand

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "[The rich] consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity...they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species." in the context of "Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part IV, Chapter I, Paragraph 10." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Invisible hand" (Quotes: Quotes are arranged alphabetically by author, S - Z) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Adam

About Adam

Adam (Hebrew: אָדָם‎, Arabic: آدم‎) was, according to the Book of Genesis and the Qur'an, the first man created by God and noted as such in subsequent Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Bahá'í traditions and literature. In Hebrew ׳āḏām, meaning "human" coupled with the definite article, becomes "the human"; its root is linked to its triliteral root אָדָם (A-D-M ), meaning "red", "fair", "handsome". As a masculine noun, 'adam means "man", "mankind" usually in a collective context as in humankind. The noun 'adam is also the masculine form of the word adamah which means "ground" or "earth" and is related to the words: adom (red), admoni (ruddy), and dam (blood).