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Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.

Adam Smith

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.
ADAM SMITH

Family Greatness King Privacy
Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
ADAM SMITH

Equality Greatness Injustice Material Property
Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
ADAM SMITH

Destruction Greatness Nation Poor Privacy
Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
ADAM SMITH

Fingers Happiness Wisdom
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
ADAM SMITH

Conversation End Happiness Leaving People Price Togetherness Trade
The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money.
ADAM SMITH

Fools Generation Money Problem Reward Save Work
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
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
In ease of body, peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.
ADAM SMITH

Beggar Body Different Fight Himself King Life Mindset Peace Security
It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually the real price of almost all manufactures.
ADAM SMITH

Affect Improvement Manufacture Natural Price Reality
Men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the means of their subsistence.
ADAM SMITH

Animal Born Man Natural Science
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
ADAM SMITH

Belief Enthusiasm Medicine Poison Science Superstition
The division of labour was limited by the extent of the market.
ADAM SMITH

Limitation Market Price
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
No complaint is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
ADAM SMITH

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

Beggar Choice Citizenship Independent
It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.
ADAM SMITH

Injustice Price Profit Society
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
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
In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
ADAM SMITH

Himself Man Necessary Work
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
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
Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.
ADAM SMITH

Ambition Goodness Service
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 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
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

Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.

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Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.

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