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A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.
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
Quite
Unnatural
Power
Estates
Fulness
Earth
Posterity
Manifestly
Ever
Belongs
Preceding
Right
Absurd
Dispose
Every
Generation
Bind
Property
Extension
Generations
Extensions
More quotes by Adam Smith
A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.
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The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.
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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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When profit diminishes, merchants are very apt to complain that trade decays though the diminution of profit is the natural effect of its prosperity, or of a greater stock being employed in it than before.
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Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.
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The game women play is men.
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Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.
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The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.
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The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.
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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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Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with with those of the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that the greatest of all improvements.
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All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
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China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.
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Problems worthy of attacks, prove their worth by hitting back
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