Adam Smith Quotes
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Lands for the purposes of pleasure and magnificence, parks, gardens, public walks, &c. possessions which are every where considered as causes of expence, not as sources of revenue, seem to be the only lands which, in a great and civilized monarchy, ought to belong the crown.
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That of beaver skins, of beaver wool, and of gum Senega, has been subjected to higher duties; Great Britain, by the conquest of Canada and Senegal, having got almost the monopoly of those commodities.
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For a very small expence the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education.
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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.
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Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.
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The man who esteems himself as he ought, and no more than he ought, seldom fails to obtain from other people all the esteem that he himself thinks due. He desires no more than is due to him, and he rests upon it with complete satisfaction.
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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.
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Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.
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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.
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It is unjust that the whole of society should contribute towards an expence of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.
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Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity.
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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.
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Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.
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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.
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The rulers of Great Britain have, for more than a century past, amused the people with the imagination that they possessed a great empire on the west side of the Atlantic. This empire, however, has hitherto existed in imagination only.
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In public, as well as in private expences, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly.
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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.
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If a workman can conveniently spare those three halfpence, he buys a pot of porter. If he cannot, he contents himself with a pint, and, as a penny saved is a penny got, he thus gains a farthing by his temperance.
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A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country.
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II. The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary.
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Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.
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I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.
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When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, over-trading becomes a general error both among great and small dealers.
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It may indeed be doubted, whether butcher's meat is any where a necessary of life. Grain and other vegetables, with the help of milk, cheese, and butter, or oil, where butter is not to be had, it is known from experience, can, without any butcher's meat, afford the most plentiful, the most wholesome, the most nourishing, and the most invigorating diet.