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The liberal reward of labor, therefore, as it is the necessary effect, so it is the natural symptom of increasing national wealth. The scanty maintenance of the laboring poor, on the other hand, is the natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their starving condition that they going backwards fast.

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
Natural
Necessary
Liberal
Laboring
Hands
Therefore
Condition
Symptom
Going
Effects
Rewards
Maintenance
Things
Conditions
Economics
Symptoms
Wealth
Effect
Starving
Stand
Fast
Backwards
Hand
National
Increasing
Poor
Labor
Reward
Scanty

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No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
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Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention.
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The retinue of a grandee in China or Indostan accordingly is, by all accounts, much more numerous and splendid than that of the richest subjects of Europe.
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The machines that are first invented to perform any particular movement are always the most complex, and succeeding artists generally discover that, with fewer wheels, with fewer principles of motion, than had originally been employed, the same effects may be more easily produced. The first systems, in the same manner, are always the most complex.
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We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
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Have lots of experiments, but make sure they're strategically focused.
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The man of system is apt to be very wise in his own conceit. In the great chess board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it
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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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But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.
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Now many such things may be done without intitling the people to rise in arms. A gross, flagrant, and palpable abuse no doubt will do it, as if they should be required to pay a tax equal to half or third of their substance.
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Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things.
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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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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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Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity.
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I have no faith in political arithmetic.
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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.
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Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life.
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The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.
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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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But poverty, though it does not prevent the generation, is extremely unfavourable to the rearing of children. The tender plant is produced, but in so cold a soil, and so severe a climate, soon withers and dies.
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