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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.

William Stanley Jevons

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William Stanley Jevons
Age: 46 †
Born: 1835
Born: September 1
Died: 1882
Died: August 13
Economist
Philosopher
Photographer
Statistician
City of Liverpool
Jevons
William Stanley
Truth
Abundance
Firsts
Necessity
Requisites
Well
Discovery
Guesses
First
Prove
Erroneous
Many
Among
Fertility
Must
Imagination
Numerous
Almost
Founded
Times
Exploration

More quotes by William Stanley Jevons

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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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The child which overbalances itself in learning to walk is experimenting on the law of gravity.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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It is clear that economics, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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One pound invested for five years gives the same result as five pounds invested for one year, the product being five pound years.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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Property is only another name for monopoly.
William Stanley Jevons
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Repeated reflection and inquiry have led me to the somewhat novel opinion, that value depends entirely upon utility.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons