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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

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Adam Smith
Age: 67 †
Born: 1723
Born: June 16
Died: 1790
Died: July 17
Economist
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Lang Toun
Else
Rest
Investing
Littles
Courses
Degree
States
Course
Administration
Opulence
Little
Justice
Carry
Requisite
Things
State
Degrees
Tolerable
Peace
Brought
Barbarism
Natural
Taxes
Lowest
Easy
Highest
Libertarian

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To subject every private family to the odious visits and examination of the tax-gatherers ... would be altogether inconsistent with liberty.
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No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
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When we have read a book or poem so often that we can no longer find any amusement in reading it by ourselves, we can still take pleasure in reading it to a companion. To him it has all the graces of novelty.
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The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.
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The ancient Egyptians had a superstitious antipathy to the sea a superstition nearly of the same kind prevails among the Indians and the Chinese have never excelled in foreign commerce.
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All registers which, it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret, ought certainly never to exist.
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Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
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Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.
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On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.
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Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty.
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