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I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

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
To feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature.
ADAM SMITH

Engagement Feeling Human Nature Perfection Selfish
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
Defense is superior to opulence.
ADAM SMITH

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

Citizenship Country Necessary Property Trade
Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.
ADAM SMITH

Defense Guard Hate Innocence Justice Nature Safety Security
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 violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.
ADAM SMITH

Afraid Cure Evil Human Injustice Kind Man Nature Rule Violence
The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.
ADAM SMITH

Foundation Man Property
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
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
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
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
ADAM SMITH

Flourish Greatness Happiness Misery Poor Society
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
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
Have lots of experiments, but make sure they’re strategically focused.
ADAM SMITH

Advice Experiment Focus Strategy

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

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I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

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