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An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.

Adam Smith

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
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
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
I have no faith in political arithmetic.
ADAM SMITH

Belief Faith Myself One Liner Politics
In a militia, the character of the laborer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character.
ADAM SMITH

Army Character Military Soldier Stand Trade
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
Every man lives by exchanging.
ADAM SMITH

Generosity Live Man
There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.
ADAM SMITH

Art Democracy Government Learning Money People Politics
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

An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.

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An instructed and intelligent people are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one.

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