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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

Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
ADAM SMITH

Equality Greatness Injustice Material Property
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 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
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
ADAM SMITH

Consience Fear Vice Virtue
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
In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
ADAM SMITH

Himself Man Necessary Work
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
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
Defense is superior to opulence.
ADAM SMITH

Defense One Liner Protection
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
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 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
Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force.
ADAM SMITH

Destroy Force Freedom
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
What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.
ADAM SMITH

Family Greatness King Privacy
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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