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Wherefore it is impossible to succeed in comparing wealth of different eras or different nations. This, in political economy, like squaring the circle in mathematics, is impracticable, for want of a common mean or measure to go by.
Jean-Baptiste Say
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Jean-Baptiste Say
Age: 65 †
Born: 1767
Born: January 5
Died: 1832
Died: November 14
Economist
Industrialist
Journalist
Translator
Lyons
Jean Baptiste Say
Economy
Circle
Impossible
Eras
Nations
Circles
Common
Compare
Political
Measure
Squaring
Mean
Mathematics
Impracticable
Different
Succeed
Wherefore
Like
Wealth
Comparing
More quotes by Jean-Baptiste Say
An uniformity of weights and measures, arranged upon mathematical principles, would be a benefit to the whole commercial world, if it were wise enough to adopt such an expedient.
Jean-Baptiste Say
It is a melancholy but an undoubted fact, that, even in the most thriving countries, part of the population annually dies of mere want. Not that all who perish from want absolutely die of hunger though this calamity is of more frequent occurrence than is generally supposed.
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The command of a large sum is a dangerous temptation to a national administration. Though accumulated at their expense, the people rarely, if ever profit by it: yet in point of fact, all value, and consequently, all wealth, originates with the people.
Jean-Baptiste Say
The ancients, by their system of colonization, made themselves friends all over the known world the moderns have sought to make subjects, and therefore have made enemies.
Jean-Baptiste Say
When war becomes a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour.
Jean-Baptiste Say
A much larger value is consumed in lettuces than in pineapples,throughout Europe at large and the superb shawls of Cachemere are, in France, a very poor object in trade, in comparison with the plain cotton goods of Rouen.
Jean-Baptiste Say
The occupation of the stock-jobber yields no new or useful product consequently having no product of his own to give in exchange, he has no revenue to subsist upon, but what he contrives to make out of the unskilfulness or ill-fortune of gamesters like himself.
Jean-Baptiste Say
Dominion by land or sea will appear equally destitute of attraction, when it comes to be generally understood, that all its advantages rest with the rulers, and that the subjects at large derive no benefit whatever.
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A tax can never be favorable to the public welfare, except by the good use that is made of its proceeds.
Jean-Baptiste Say
Supply creates its own demand.
Jean-Baptiste Say
The best scheme of finance is, to spend as little as possible and the best tax is always the lightest.
Jean-Baptiste Say
Some writers maintain arithmetic to be only the only sure guide in political economy for my part, I see so many detestable systems built upon arithmetical statements, that I am rather inclined to regard that science as the instrument of national calamity.
Jean-Baptiste Say
No human being has the faculty of originally creating matter, which is more than nature itself can do. But any one may avail himself of the agents offered him by nature, to invest matter with utility.
Jean-Baptiste Say
regulation is useful and proper, when aimed at the prevention of fraud or contrivance, manifestly injurious to other kinds of production, or to the public safety, and not at prescribing the nature of the products and the methods of fabrication.
Jean-Baptiste Say
All travellers agree that protestant are both richer and more populous than catholic countriesand the reason is, because the habits of the former are more conducive to production.
Jean-Baptiste Say
If the community wish to have the benefit of more knowledge and intelligence in the labouring classes, it must dispense it at the public charge.
Jean-Baptiste Say
With respect to the present time, there are few persons who unite the qualifications of good observers with a situation favourable for accurate observation.
Jean-Baptiste Say
A nation or an individual, will do wisely to direct consumption chiefly to those articles, that are longest time in wearing out, and the most frequently in use.
Jean-Baptiste Say
The sea and wind can at the same time convey my neighbour's vessel and my own.
Jean-Baptiste Say
A shop-keeper in good business is quite as well off as a pedlar that travels the country with his wares on his back. Commercial jealousy is, after all, nothing but prejudice: it is a wild fruit, that will drop of itself when it has arrived at maturity.
Jean-Baptiste Say
