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Nature's action is complex: and nothing is gained in the long run by pretending that it is simple, and trying to describe it in a series of elementary propositions.

Alfred Marshall

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Alfred Marshall
Age: 82 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 1
Died: 1924
Died: January 1
Economist
Philosopher
University Teacher
Bermondsey
Surrey
Nature
Pretending
Nothing
Describe
Trying
Complexes
Long
Complex
Series
Simple
Elementary
Running
Propositions
Action
Gained

More quotes by Alfred Marshall

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Though a simple book can be written on selected topics, the central doctrines of economics are not simple and cannot be made so.
Alfred Marshall
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In the absence of any short term in common use to represent all desirable things, or things that satisfy human wants, we may use the term Goods for that purpose.
Alfred Marshall
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The price of every thing rises and falls from time to time and place to place and with every such change the purchasing power of money changes so far as that thing goes.
Alfred Marshall
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Civilized countries generally adopt gold or silver or both as money.
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The love for money is only one among many.
Alfred Marshall
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But if inventions have increased man's power over nature very much, then the real value of money is better measured for some purposes in labour than in commodities.
Alfred Marshall
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It is common to distinguish necessaries, comforts, and luxuries the first class including all things required to meet wants which must be satisfied, while the latter consist of things that meet wants of a less urgent character.
Alfred Marshall
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Political Economy or Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life.
Alfred Marshall
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We might as well reasonably dispute whether it is the upper or the under blade of a pair of scissors that cuts a piece of paper, as whether value is governed by demand or supply.
Alfred Marshall
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Material goods consist of useful material things, and of all rights to hold, or use, or derive benefits from material things, or to receive them at a future time.
Alfred Marshall
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Slavery was regarded by Aristotle as an ordinance of nature, and so probably was it by the slaves themselves in olden time.
Alfred Marshall
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In every age poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a nobler life by enchanting stories of the virtues of the heroes of old.
Alfred Marshall
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Again, most of the chief distinctions marked by economic terms are differences not of kind but of degree.
Alfred Marshall
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The most reckless and treacherous of all theorists is he who professes to let facts and figures speak for themselves.
Alfred Marshall
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The most valuable of all capital is that invested in human beings
Alfred Marshall
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And very often the influence exerted on a person's character by the amount of his income is hardly less, if it is less, than that exerted by the way in which it is earned.
Alfred Marshall
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All labour is directed towards producing some effect.
Alfred Marshall
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Consumption may be regarded as negative production.
Alfred Marshall
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Individual and national rights to wealth rest on the basis of civil and international law, or at least of custom that has the force of law.
Alfred Marshall
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In common use almost every word has many shades of meaning, and therefore needs to be interpreted by the context.
Alfred Marshall