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The tolls for the maintenance of a high road, cannot with any safety be made the property of private persons.
Adam Smith -
The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.
Adam Smith
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Hatred and anger are the greatest poison to the happiness of a good mind.
Adam Smith -
The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes.
Adam Smith -
The government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever.
Adam Smith -
But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.
Adam Smith -
In reality, during the continuance of any one regulated proportion, between the respective values of the different values of the different metals in the coin, the value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin.
Adam Smith -
Thus the labour of a manufacture adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his masters profits. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing.
Adam Smith
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As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
Adam Smith -
The great affair, we always find, is to get money.
Adam Smith -
Oatmeal indeed supplies the common people of Scotland with the greatest and best part of their food, which is in general much inferior to that of their neighbours of the same rank in England.
Adam Smith -
The act of navigation is not favourable to foreign commerce, or to the growth of that opulence which can arise from it. ... As defence, however, is of much more importance than opulence, the act of navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England.
Adam Smith -
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 -
The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the affect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. To complain of it, is to lament over the necessary effect and cause of the greatest public prosperity.
Adam Smith
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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 -
When I endeavour to examine my own conduct, when I endeavour to pass sentence upon it, and either to approve or condemn it, it is evident that, in all such cases, I divide myself, as it were, into two persons; and that I, the examiner and judge, represent a different character from that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into and judged of.
Adam Smith -
When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, over-trading becomes a general error both among great and small dealers.
Adam Smith -
The Hudson's Bay Company, before their misfortunes in the late war, had been much more fortunate than the Royal African Company.
Adam Smith -
In England, and in all Roman Catholic countries, the lottery of the church is in reality much more advantageous than is necessary.
Adam Smith -
By the removal of the unnecessary mouths, and by extracting from the farmer the full value of the farm, a greater surplus, or what is the same thing, the price of a greater surplus, was obtained for the proprietor...
Adam Smith
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To hinder, besides, the farmer from selling his goods at all times to the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary laws of justice to an idea of public utility, to a sort of reasons of state; an act of legislative authority which ought to be exercised only, which can be pardoned only in cases of the most urgent necessity.
Adam Smith -
The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating.
Adam Smith -
The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increasing either the number of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of those labourers who had before been employed.
Adam Smith -
It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.
Adam Smith