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

Adam Smith

Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.
ADAM SMITH

Ambition Goodness Service
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
All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
ADAM SMITH

Age Kind Man Master Ourselves People 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
Defense is superior to opulence.
ADAM SMITH

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

Advice Experiment Focus Strategy
Whatever work he does, beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.
ADAM SMITH

Beyond Himself Maintain Violence Work
Every man lives by exchanging.
ADAM SMITH

Generosity Live Man
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.
ADAM SMITH

Evidence Exception Fortune Happiness Himself Man Nature Necessary Principle See Selfish
Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
ADAM SMITH

Dignity Fortune Man Moral Small
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
Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
ADAM SMITH

Fingers Happiness Wisdom
Labor was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things.
ADAM SMITH

Economy Money Price Work
Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.
ADAM SMITH

Beggar Choice Citizenship Independent
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
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

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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