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Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

Adam Smith

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
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
Labour was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.
ADAM SMITH

Gold Money Pay Price Purchase Wealth Work World
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
ADAM SMITH

Flourish Greatness Happiness Misery Poor Society
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
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
Ask any rich man of common prudence to which of the two sorts of people he has lent the greater part of his stock, to those who, he thinks, will employ it profitably, or to those who will spend it idly, and he will laugh at you for proposing the question.
ADAM SMITH

Employment Greatness Laughter Man People Propose Rich Thinking
I have no faith in political arithmetic.
ADAM SMITH

Belief Faith Myself One Liner Politics
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.
ADAM SMITH

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

Citizenship Country Necessary Property Trade
Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
ADAM SMITH

Dignity Fortune Man Moral Small
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
Defense is superior to opulence.
ADAM SMITH

Defense One Liner Protection

Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

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Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

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