No benevolent man ever lost altogether the fruits of his benevolence. If he does not always gather them from the persons from whom he ought to have gathered them, he seldom fails to gather them, and with a tenfold increase, from other people. Kindness is the parent of kindness; and if to be beloved by our brethren be the great object of our ambition, the surest way of obtaining it is, by our conduct to show that we really love them.
(The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759)
Adam Smith
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Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed. 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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