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Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.

Adam Smith

It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense. They are themselves, always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.
ADAM SMITH

Economy Greatness King People Pretend Privacy Society
A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.
ADAM SMITH

Citizenship Country Necessary Property Trade
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
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
I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.
ADAM SMITH

Faith Greatness Myself Politics
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
When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays; though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than before.
ADAM SMITH

Employment Greatness Loss Natural Profit Prosperity Trade
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
The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery.
ADAM SMITH

Fair Perfection Right See World
Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
ADAM SMITH

Equality Greatness Injustice Material Property
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
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
Have lots of experiments, but make sure they’re strategically focused.
ADAM SMITH

Advice Experiment Focus Strategy
No complaint is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
ADAM SMITH

Complaint Money
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
ADAM SMITH

Cruelty Guilty Innocent Justice Mercy
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

Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.

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Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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