Adam Smith

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Adam Smith

In ease of body, peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.

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Adam Smith

When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than before.

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Adam Smith

That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.

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Adam Smith

A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it.

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Adam Smith

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.

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Adam Smith

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.

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Adam Smith

The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation.

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Adam Smith

The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.

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Adam Smith

The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.

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Adam Smith

He is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

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Adam Smith

Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.

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