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Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.

Adam Smith

The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.
ADAM SMITH

Character Deep Himself Man Reaction Yourself
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
We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
ADAM SMITH

Philosophy Respect
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
What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?
ADAM SMITH

Consience Happiness Health Man Money
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
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
The game women play is men.
ADAM SMITH

Game Man One Liner Play Relationship Woman
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
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 power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.
ADAM SMITH

Earth Generation Mad Nature Power Property Right
An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.
ADAM SMITH

Ignorance Instruction Intelligence Oneself Order People Stupidity
Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State.
ADAM SMITH

People Possible Tax Treasure
The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.
ADAM SMITH

Corruption Emotion Greatness Moral Ourselves Person Poor Powerful Rich Worship
Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.
ADAM SMITH

Excitement Jealous Nation Violence
It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.
ADAM SMITH

Active Country Greatness Production
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
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 learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination.
ADAM SMITH

Evidence Ideas Ignorance Imagination Learning
By pursuing his own interest (the individual) frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
ADAM SMITH

Goodness Myself Pursue Society Trade
It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.
ADAM SMITH

Desire Man Money Power
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
On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.
ADAM SMITH

Journey Myself Path Road
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.
ADAM SMITH

Destroy Force Freedom
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
It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.
ADAM SMITH

Active Country Greatness Production
Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life.
ADAM SMITH

Enjoy Fulfill Human Life Man Necessary Poor Rich Satisfaction

Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.

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Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.

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Popular Authors

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