"Defense is superior to opulence."
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Quote collection
Adam Smith quotes (page 3 of 11)
204 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country."
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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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"Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself."
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"Corn is a necessary, silver is only a superfluity."
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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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"There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people."
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"With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches."
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"It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing. Money no doubt, makes always a part of the national capital; but it has already been shown that it generally makes but a small part, and always the most unprofitable part of it."
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"The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education."
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"Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality."
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"The learned ignore the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination."
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"The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery."
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"Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct."
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"It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does or does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect it altogether, or, if he is subject to some authority which will not suffer him to do this, to perform it in as careless and slovenly a manner as that authority will permit."
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"With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves."
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"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."
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"Every man lives by exchanging."
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"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."
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"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."
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