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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.

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
Treated
Economists
Short
Wishing
Wish
Economist
Science
Mathematician
Write
Convince
Writing
Mathematical
Satisfactorily
Basis
Explicitly
Bases
Mathematicians

More quotes by 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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It isrequisite from time to time to remind one generation of the experience which led a former generation to important legislative actions.
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
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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.
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 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.
William Stanley Jevons
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Economists can never be free of from difficulties unless they will distinguish between a theory and the application of a theory.
William Stanley Jevons
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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.
William Stanley Jevons
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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
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The calculus of utility aims at supplying the ordinary wants of man at the least cost of labour.
William Stanley Jevons
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but, in reality, there is no such thing as an exact science.
William Stanley Jevons
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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
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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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What capital I give for the spade merely replaces what the manufacturer had already invested in the expectation that the spade would be needed.
William Stanley Jevons
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Science arises from the discovery of Identity amid Diversity.
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 ... 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
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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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The difficulties of economics are mainly the difficulties of conceiving clearly and fully the conditions of utility.
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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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