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A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it’s people.

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.
ADAM SMITH

Administration Carry Easy Justice Low Nature Peace State Tolerance
In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
ADAM SMITH

Himself Man Necessary Work
Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
ADAM SMITH

Destruction Greatness Nation Poor Privacy
That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.
ADAM SMITH

Chance Learning Nature Success Value
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.
ADAM SMITH

Expectation Food Interest Job Ourselves Regard
The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.
ADAM SMITH

Corruption Emotion Greatness Moral Ourselves Person Poor Powerful Rich Worship
As soon as government management begins it upsets the natural equilibrium of industrial relations, and each interference only requires further bureaucratic control until the end is the tyranny of the totalitarian state.
ADAM SMITH

Beginning Control Destruction End Government Management Nature Relationship
I am a beau in nothing but my books.
ADAM SMITH

Book Myself
I have no faith in political arithmetic.
ADAM SMITH

Belief Faith Myself One Liner Politics
Labour was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.
ADAM SMITH

Gold Money Pay Price Purchase Wealth Work World
Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
ADAM SMITH

Fingers Happiness Wisdom
There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.
ADAM SMITH

Art Democracy Government Learning Money People Politics
A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.
ADAM SMITH

Earth Generation Mad Nature Power Property Right
The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be. The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough.
ADAM SMITH

Believe Enough Experience Live Man Teaching Wisdom
I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
ADAM SMITH

Affect Goodness Myself Trade
The division of labour was limited by the extent of the market.
ADAM SMITH

Limitation Market Price

A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it’s people.

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A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it’s people.

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Popular Authors

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