No paint or dye can give so splendid a colour as gilding. The merit of their beauty is greatly enhanced by their scarcity. With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves. In their eyes the merit of an object which is in any degree either useful or beautiful is greatly enhanced by its scarcity, or by the great labour which it requires to collect any considerable quantity of it, a labour which nobody can afford to pay but themselves. Book I, Chapter 11 - Rent of Land, part II . Adam Smith
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  2. Keep your best wishes, close to your heart and watch what happens - Tony Deliso
  3. Happiness is part of who we are. Joy is the feeling - Tony Deliso
  4. Don't blow off another's candle for it won't make yours shine brighter. - Jaachynma N.E. Agu
  5. Those born to wealth, and who have the means of gratifying every wish, know not what is the real happiness of life, just as those who have been tossed on the stormy waters of the ocean on a few frail planks can alone realize the... - Alexandre Dumas
More Quotes By Adam Smith
  1. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
  2. The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between...
  3. There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.
  4. Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
  5. Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them.
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