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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

A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.
ADAM SMITH

Citizenship Country Necessary Property Trade
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
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
Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attornies, at least, must always be paid by the parties; and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they actually perform it.
ADAM SMITH

Administration Country Justice Party Pay Performance Reality Responsibility Worst
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.
ADAM SMITH

Consumption End Necessary Production Purpose
Wonder and not any expectation of advantage from its discoveries, is the first principle which prompts mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature.
ADAM SMITH

Appearance Connection Discover Expectation Kind Man Nature Philosophy Pretend Principle Science Study Wonderful
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
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
Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness.
ADAM SMITH

Cheerful Grace Habit Happiness
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
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
In general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labour, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition, it will always be the more so.
ADAM SMITH

Competition Freedom Trade Work
Man, an animal that makes bargains.
ADAM SMITH

Animal Man One Liner
Have lots of experiments, but make sure they’re strategically focused.
ADAM SMITH

Advice Experiment Focus Strategy
Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
ADAM SMITH

Destruction Greatness Nation Poor Privacy
Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
ADAM SMITH

Beggar Choice Citizenship Independent

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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