William Stanley Jevons Quotes
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It isrequisite from time to time to remind one generation of the experience which led a former generation to important legislative actions.
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Truth indeed is sacred; but, as Pilate said, "What is truth?" Show us the undoubted infallible criterion of absolute truth, and we will hold it as a sacred inviolable thing. But in the absence of that infallible criterion, we have all an equal right to grope about in our search of it, and no body and no school nor clique must be allowed to set up a standard of orthodoxy which shall bar the freedom of scientific inquiry.
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Repeated reflection and inquiry have led me to the somewhat novel opinion, that value depends entirely upon utility.
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A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish.
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There are a multitude of allied branches of knowledge connected with mans condition; the relation of these to political economy is analogous to the connexion of mechanics, astronomy, optics, sound, heat, and every other branch more or less of physical science, with pure mathematics.
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Value is the most invincible and impalpable of ghosts, and comes and goes unthought of, while the visible and dense matter remains as it was.
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The calculus of utility aims at supplying the ordinary wants of man at the least cost of labour.
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The point of equilibrium will be known by the criterion that an infinitely small amount of commodity exchanged in addition, at the same rate, will bring neither gain nor loss of utility.
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The wind, as a direct motive power, is wholly inapplicable to a system of machine labour, for during a calm season the whole business of the country would be thrown out of gear. Before the era of steam-engines, windmills were tried for draining mines; but though they were powerful machines, they were very irregular, so that in a long tract of calm weather the mines were drowned, and all the workmen thrown idle.
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Ina regular and constant employment the greatest result will always be gained by such a rate as allows a workman each day,or each week at the most, to recover all fatigue and recommence with an undiminished store of energy.
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I protest against deference to any man, whether John Stuart Mill, or Adam Smith, or Aristotle, being allowed to check inquiry. Our science has become far too much a stagnant one, in which opinions rather than experience and reason are appealed to.
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The difficulties of economics are mainly the difficulties of conceiving clearly and fully the conditions of utility.
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Over-production is not possible in all branches of industry at once, but it is possible in some as compared to others.
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In matters of philosophy and science authority has ever been the great opponent of truth. A despotic calm is usually the triumph of error. In the republic of the sciences sedition and even anarchy are beneficial in the long run to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
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We shall never have a science of economics unless we learn to discern the operation of law even among the most perplexing complications and apparent interruptions.
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Whoever wishes to acquire a deep acquaintance with Nature must observe that there are analogies which connect whole branches of science in a parallel manner, and enable us to infer of one class of phenomena what we know of another. It has thus happened on several occasions that the discovery of an unsuspected analogy between two branches of knowledge has been the starting point for a rapid course of discovery.
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The theory which follows is entirely based on a calculus of pleasure and pain; and the object of economics is to maximize happiness by purchasing pleasure, as it were, at the lowest cost of pain.
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What capital I give for the spade merely replaces what the manufacturer had already invested in the expectation that the spade would be needed.
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There is no such thing as absolute cost of labour; it is all a matter of comparison. Every one gets the most which he can for his exertions; some can get little or nothing, because they have not sufficient strength, knowledge or ingenuity; others get much, because they have, comparatively speaking, a monopoly of certain powers.
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but, in reality, there is no such thing as an exact science.
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Among minor alterations, I may mention the substitution for the name political economy of the single convenient term economics. I cannot help thinking that it would be well to discard, as quickly as possible, the old troublesome double-worded name of our science.
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I feel quite unable to adopt the opinion that the moment goods pass into the possession of the consumer they cease altogether to have the attributes of capital.
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There are many portions of economical doctrine which appear to me as scientific in form as they are consonant with facts.
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I am convinced that it is impossible to expound the methods of induction in a sound manner, without resting them upon the theory of probability. Perfect knowledge alone can give certainty, and in nature perfect knowledge would be infinite knowledge, which is clearly beyond our capacities. We have, therefore, to content ourselves with partial knowledge - knowledge mingled with ignorance, producing doubt.