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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

Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.
ADAM SMITH

Ambition Goodness Service
The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.
ADAM SMITH

Animal Man Race
Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.
ADAM SMITH

Desire Important Man Management Return
Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.
ADAM SMITH

Buy Material Money Price Purpose Service
Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.
ADAM SMITH

Difference Food Necessary Worth
The proprietor of stock is necessarily a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country.
ADAM SMITH

Attachment Citizenship Country Necessary World
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.
ADAM SMITH

Beggar Body Different Fight Himself King Life Mindset Peace Security
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
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
Labor was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things.
ADAM SMITH

Economy Money Price Work
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
ADAM SMITH

Cruelty Guilty Innocent Justice Mercy
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
I have no faith in political arithmetic.
ADAM SMITH

Belief Faith Myself One Liner Politics
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.
ADAM SMITH

Employment Fear Government Independent Instrument Man Order
Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.
ADAM SMITH

Desire Love Man Nature Object
Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.
ADAM SMITH

Animal Born Man Natural Science

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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