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Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

Adam Smith

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
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
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
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
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.
ADAM SMITH

Consumption End Necessary Production Purpose
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
A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.
ADAM SMITH

Citizenship Country Necessary Property Trade
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
Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.
ADAM SMITH

Ambition Goodness Service
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
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.
ADAM SMITH

Destroy Force Freedom
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
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
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
Labor was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things.
ADAM SMITH

Economy Money Price Work

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

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Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

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Popular Authors

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