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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

The rate of profit is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.
ADAM SMITH

Country Deep Destruction Fast Poor Profit Rich Ruin
The division of labour was limited by the extent of the market.
ADAM SMITH

Limitation Market Price
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.
ADAM SMITH

Demand Man Market Poor Product Satisfaction
A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, unites in his own person the three different characters, of landlord, farmer, and labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the first, the profit of the second, and the wages of the third.
ADAM SMITH

Character Different Garden Hands Independent Money Pay Person Production
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
All money is a matter of belief.
ADAM SMITH

Belief Money One Liner
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
With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.
ADAM SMITH

Enjoyment Greatness People Rich
Ask any rich man of common prudence to which of the two sorts of people he has lent the greater part of his stock, to those who, he thinks, will employ it profitably, or to those who will spend it idly, and he will laugh at you for proposing the question.
ADAM SMITH

Employment Greatness Laughter Man People Propose Rich Thinking
Whatever work he does, beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.
ADAM SMITH

Beyond Himself Maintain Violence Work
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
ADAM SMITH

Conversation End Happiness Leaving People Price Togetherness 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
It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense. They are themselves, always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.
ADAM SMITH

Economy Greatness King People Pretend Privacy Society
The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
ADAM SMITH

Cost Man Price Reality Trouble
Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
ADAM SMITH

Beggar Choice Citizenship Independent
It must always be remembered, however, that it is the luxuries, and not the necessary expense of the inferior ranks of people, that ought ever to be taxed.
ADAM SMITH

Luxury Necessary People Price Remember Tax

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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