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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.
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
Great
Britain
Never
Absurd
Entirely
Indeed
Expect
Trade
Restored
Freedom
Utopia
Ever
Established
More quotes by Adam Smith
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.
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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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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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I have no faith in political arithmetic.
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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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It seldom happens, however, that a great proprietor is a great improver.
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Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
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Nothing but the most exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune.
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No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
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The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
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Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favor of the workmen, it is always just and equitable but it is sometimes otherwise when in favor of the masters.
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The proprietor of stock is necessarily a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country.
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The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating.
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That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most often unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.
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The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
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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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It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense. They are themselves, always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.
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In public, as well as in private expences, great wealth may, perhaps, frequently be admitted as an apology for great folly.
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