Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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.
William Stanley Jevons
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Language
Exact
Science
Reasoning
Reality
Uncertainty
Persons
Mathematical
Ideas
Confusion
Many
Certainty
Ontology
Thing
Prejudice
Arising
Logic
Entertain
More quotes by William Stanley Jevons
A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish.
William Stanley Jevons
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.
William Stanley Jevons
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
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
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
It is clear that economics, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science.
William Stanley Jevons
Over-production is not possible in all branches of industry at once, but it is possible in some as compared to others.
William Stanley Jevons
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
The child which overbalances itself in learning to walk is experimenting on the law of gravity.
William Stanley Jevons
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.
William Stanley Jevons
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.
William Stanley Jevons
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.
William Stanley Jevons
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
Economists can never be free of from difficulties unless they will distinguish between a theory and the application of a theory.
William Stanley Jevons
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
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.
William Stanley Jevons
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.
William Stanley Jevons
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.
William Stanley Jevons
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
Repeated reflection and inquiry have led me to the somewhat novel opinion, that value depends entirely upon utility.
William Stanley Jevons