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By pursuing his own interest (the individual) frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
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
Much
Capitalism
Really
Trade
Effectually
Good
Public
Intends
Never
Known
Promotes
Interest
Pursuing
Society
Promote
Individual
Frequently
Done
Affected
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To hinder, besides, the farmer from selling his goods at all times to the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary laws of justice to an idea of public utility, to a sort of reasons of state an act of legislative authority which ought to be exercised only, which can be pardoned only in cases of the most urgent necessity.
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Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.
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But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about.
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This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.
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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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We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.
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Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition.
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By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound
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Every man lives by exchanging.
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I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.
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I am a beau in nothing but my books.
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