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Poor David Hume is dying fast, but with more real cheerfulness and good humor and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things, than any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.

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
Poor
Cheerfulness
Christian
David
Ever
Fast
Real
Necessary
Hume
Good
Dying
Dyed
Things
Humor
Pretended
Courses
Whining
Course
Resignation

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Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.
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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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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.
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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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This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.
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Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them.
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Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.
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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.
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The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, capable not only of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting 100 impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.
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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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What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?
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To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should never be established in it.
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We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves.
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Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attornies, at least, must always be paid by the parties and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they actually perform it.
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Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.
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Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
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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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Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.
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