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Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

Adam Smith

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.
ADAM SMITH

Evidence Exception Fortune Happiness Himself Man Nature Necessary Principle See Selfish
All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
ADAM SMITH

Age Kind Man Master Ourselves People World
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.
ADAM SMITH

Change Fact Generation Greatness Mathematics Opinion Rule Theory
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.
ADAM SMITH

Employment Greatness Loss Natural Profit Prosperity Trade
All money is a matter of belief.
ADAM SMITH

Belief Money One Liner
Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
ADAM SMITH

Destruction Greatness Nation Poor Privacy
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
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.
ADAM SMITH

Destroy Force Freedom
The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.
ADAM SMITH

Deal Different Manufacture Respect Trade
The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
ADAM SMITH

Affect Direction Greatness Improvement Judgement Power Production Skill Work
What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.
ADAM SMITH

Family Greatness King Privacy
The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money.
ADAM SMITH

Fools Generation Money Problem Reward Save Work
Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.
ADAM SMITH

Ambition Goodness Service
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
In a militia, the character of the laborer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character.
ADAM SMITH

Army Character Military Soldier Stand Trade
The learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.
ADAM SMITH

Evidence Ideas Ignorance Imagination Learning

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

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Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

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