Top 62 Quotes & Sayings by William Stanley Jevons

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.

Capital simply allows us to expend labour in advance.

The calculus of utility aims at supplying the ordinary wants of man at the least cost of labour.

Repeated reflection and inquiry have led me to the somewhat novel opinion, that value depends entirely upon utility.

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.

A little experience is worth much argument; a few facts are better than any theory.

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.

Labour once spent has no influence on the future value of any article; it isgone and lost for ever. In commerce bygones are forever bygones; and we are alwaysstarting clearat each moment, judging the values of things with a view to future utility.

In short, I do not write for mathematicians, nor as a mathematician, but as an economist wishing to convince other economists that their science can only be satisfactorily treated on an explicitly mathematical basis.

One pound invested for five years gives the same result as five pounds invested for one year, the product being five pound years.

The laws of thought are natural laws with which we have no power to interfere, and which are of course not to be in any way confused with the artificial laws of a country, which are invented by men and can be altered by them. Every science is occupied in detecting and describing the natural laws which are inflexibly observed by the objects treated in the Science.

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.

The whole result of continued labour is not often consumed and enjoyed in a moment; the result generally lasts for a certain length of time. We must then conceive the capital as being progressively uninvested.

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.

As there are so many who talk prose without knowing it, or, again, who syllogize without having the least idea what a syllogism is, so economists have long been mathematicians without being aware of the fact.

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.

Over-production is not possible in all branches of industry at once, but it is possible in some as compared to others.

I used to think I should like to be a bookbinder or bookseller it seemed to me a most delightful trade and I wished or thought of nothing better. More lately I thought I should be a minister, it seemed so serious and useful a profession, and I entered but little into the merits of religion and the duties of a minister. Every one dissuaded me from the notion, and before I arrived at any age to require a real decision, science had claimed me.

Science arises from the discovery of Identity amid Diversity.

It isrequisite from time to time to remind one generation of the experience which led a former generation to important legislative actions.

One of the first and most difficult steps in a science is to conceive clearly the nature of the magnitudes about which we are arguing.

By a commodity we shall understand any object, substance, action or service, which can afford pleasure or ward off pain.

Logic should no longer be considered an elegant and learned accomplishment; it should take its place as an indispensable study for every well-informed person.

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.

Economists can never be free of from difficulties unless they will distinguish between a theory and the application of a theory.

PLEASURE and pain are undoubtedly the ultimate objects of the calculus of economics. To satisfy our wants to the utmost with the least effort - to procure the greatest amount of what is desirable at the expense of the least that is undesirable - in other words, to maximize pleasure, is the problem of economics.

One of the most important axioms is, that as the quantity of any commodity, for instance, plain food, which a man has to consume, increases, so the utility or benefit derived from the last portion used decreases in degree. The decrease in enjoyment between the beginning and the end of a meal may be taken as an example.

You will perceive that economy, scientifically speaking, is a very contracted science; it is in fact a sort of vague mathematics which calculates the causes and effects of man's industry, and shows how it may be best applied.

Fertility of imagination and abundance of guesses at truth are among the first requisites of discovery; but the erroneous guesses must almost of necessity be many times as numerous as those which prove well founded.

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.

My principal work now lies in tracing out the exact nature and conditions of utility. It seems strange indeed that economists have not bestowed more minute attention on a subject which doubtless furnishes the true key to the problems of economics.

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.

The whole value of science consists in the power which it confers upon us of applying to one object the knowledge acquired from like objects; and it is only so far, therefore, as we can discover and register resemblances that we can turn our observations to account.

Some of the gold possessed by the Romans is doubtless mixed with what we now possess; and some small part of it will be handed down as long as the human race exists.

Property is only another name for monopoly.

A spade may be made of any size, and if the same number of strokes be made in the hour, the requisite exertion will vary nearly as the cube of the length of the blade.

Many persons entertain a prejudice against mathematical language, arising out of a confusion between the ideas of a mathematical science and an exact science. ...in reality, there is no such thing as an exact science.

What capital I give for the spade merely replaces what the manufacturer had already invested in the expectation that the spade would be needed.

Charles Babbage proposed to make an automaton chess-player which should register mechanically the number of games lost and gained in consequence of every sort of move. Thus, the longer the automaton went on playing game, the more experienced it would become by the accumulation of experimental results. Such a machine precisely represents the acquirement of experience by our nervous organization.

we often observe that there is abundance of capital to be had at low rates of interest, while there are also large numbers of artisans starving for want of employment.

I consider that interest is determined by the increment of produce which it enables a labourer to obtain, and is altogether independent of the total return which he receives for this labour.

There are many portions of economical doctrine which appear to me as scientific in form as they are consonant with facts.

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.

The difficulties of economics are mainly the difficulties of conceiving clearly and fully the conditions of utility.

It seems perfectly clear that Economy, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science. There exists much prejudice against attempts to introduce the methods and language of mathematics into any branch of the moral sciences. Most persons appear to hold that the physical sciences form the proper sphere of mathematical method, and that the moral sciences demand some other method-I know not what.

A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish.

Logic is not only an exact science, but is the most simple and elementary of all sciences; it ought therefore undoubtedly to find some place in every course of education.

When quite young I can remember I had no thought or wish of surpassing others. I was rather taken with a liking of little arts and bits of learning. My mother carefully fostered a liking for botany, giving me a small microscope and many books, which I yet have. Strange as it may seem, I now believe that botany and the natural system, by exercising discrimination of kinds, is the best of logical exercises. What I may do in logic is perhaps derived from that early attention to botany.

The child which overbalances itself in learning to walk is experimenting on the law of gravity.

but, in reality, there is no such thing as an exact science.

An isolated man like Alexander Selkirk might feel the benefit of a stock of provisions, tools and other means of facilitating industry, although cut off from traffic, with other men.

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.

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.

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.

It is clear that Economics, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science ... simply because it deals with quantities... As the complete theory of almost every other science involves the use of calculus, so we cannot have a true theory of Economics without its aid.

As a general rule, it is foolish to do just what other people are doing, because there are almost sure to be too many people doing the same thing.

It is clear that economics, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science.

In any case I hold that there must arise a science of the development of economic forms and relations.

All classes of society are trade unionists at heart, and differ chiefly in the boldness, ability, and secrecy with which they pursue their respective interests.

The conclusion to which I am ever more clearly coming is that the only hope of attaining a true system of economics is to fling aside,once and forever, the mazy and preposterous assumptions of the Ricardian school. Our English economists have been living in a fool's paradise. The truth is with the French school, and the sooner we recognize the fact, the better it will be for all the world, except perhaps the few writers who are far too committed to the old erroneous doctrines to allow for renunciation.