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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

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

Citizenship Country Necessary Property Trade
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
ADAM SMITH

Administration Carry Easy Justice Low Nature Peace State Tolerance
A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it.
ADAM SMITH

Demand Man Market Poor Product Satisfaction
Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.
ADAM SMITH

Excitement Jealous Nation Violence
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.
ADAM SMITH

Consumption End Production Purpose
Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
ADAM SMITH

Equality Greatness Injustice Material Property
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
A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.
ADAM SMITH

Earth Generation Mad Nature Power Property Right
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
Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.
ADAM SMITH

Buy Material Money Price Purpose Service
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
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
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
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
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

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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