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

Adam Smith

It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.
ADAM SMITH

Desire Man Money Power
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 learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.
ADAM SMITH

Evidence Ideas Ignorance Imagination Learning
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 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
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
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
Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
ADAM SMITH

Destruction Greatness Nation Poor Privacy
It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.
ADAM SMITH

Active Country Greatness Production
As soon as government management begins it upsets the natural equilibrium of industrial relations, and each interference only requires further bureaucratic control until the end is the tyranny of the totalitarian state.
ADAM SMITH

Beginning Control Destruction End Government Management Nature Relationship
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 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
Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.
ADAM SMITH

Animal Born Man Natural Science
A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it enriched by the economic prosperity of it’s people.
ADAM SMITH

Children Material Nation People Prosperity Wealth
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
Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
ADAM SMITH

Defense Government Institution Poor Property Reality Rich Security

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

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

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Popular Authors

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