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Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.

Adam Smith

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
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 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
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
Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
ADAM SMITH

Dignity Fortune Man Moral Small
Labor was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things.
ADAM SMITH

Economy Money Price Work
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
With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.
ADAM SMITH

Enjoyment Greatness People Rich
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
Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.
ADAM SMITH

Desire Love Man Nature Object
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.
ADAM SMITH

Consumption End Production Purpose
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
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
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
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
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

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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