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Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.

Adam Smith

It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.
ADAM SMITH

Age Believe End Experience Freedom Man Nation Performance Slave
Have lots of experiments, but make sure they’re strategically focused.
ADAM SMITH

Advice Experiment Focus Strategy
Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this – no dog exchanges bones with another.
ADAM SMITH

Animal Attitude Character Dog Man
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
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
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
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

Change Fact Generation Greatness Mathematics Opinion Rule Theory
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
The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.
ADAM SMITH

Deal Different Manufacture Respect 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
On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.
ADAM SMITH

Journey Myself Path Road
Every man lives by exchanging.
ADAM SMITH

Generosity Live Man
We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
ADAM SMITH

Philosophy Respect
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
The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
ADAM SMITH

Affect Direction Greatness Improvement Judgement Power Production Skill Work
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

Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.

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Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.

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Popular Authors

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