Adam Smith：The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter V, Paragraph 85

Princes and sovereign states have frequently fancied that they had a temporary interest to diminish the quantity of pure metal contained in their coins; but they seldom have fancied that they had any to augment it. The quantity of metal contained in the coins, I believe of all nations, has accordingly been almost continually diminishing, and hardly ever augmenting. Such variations, therefore, tend almost always to diminish the value of a money rent.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300
Locator：Book I, Chapter V, paragraph 85 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Exact match

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