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We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.

Adam Smith

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
As soon as government management begins it upsets the natural equilibrium of industrial relations, and each interference only requires further bureaucratic control until the end is the tyranny of the totalitarian state.
ADAM SMITH

Beginning Control Destruction End Government Management Nature Relationship
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.
ADAM SMITH

Destroy Force Freedom
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 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
The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
ADAM SMITH

Cost Man Price Reality Trouble
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
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.
ADAM SMITH

Consumption End Production Purpose
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 great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.
ADAM SMITH

Direction Education Greatness Object Secret
Defense is superior to opulence.
ADAM SMITH

Defense One Liner Protection
Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.
ADAM SMITH

Complaint Power Time Yourself
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
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 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
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
That the chance of gain is naturally over-valued, we may learn from the universal success of lotteries.
ADAM SMITH

Chance Learning Nature Success Value
Resentment seems to have been given us by nature for a defense, and for a defense only! It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence.
ADAM SMITH

Defense Guard Hate Innocence Justice Nature Safety Security
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
ADAM SMITH

Expectation Food Interest Job Ourselves Regard
Man, an animal that makes bargains.
ADAM SMITH

Animal Man One Liner
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
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
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
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
Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness.
ADAM SMITH

Cheerful Grace Habit Happiness
The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be. The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough.
ADAM SMITH

Believe Enough Experience Live Man Teaching Wisdom

We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.

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We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.

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