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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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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
Theory
Lowest
Pleasure
Follows
Happiness
Entirely
Pain
Economics
Object
Based
Maximize
Cost
Purchasing
Objects
Calculus

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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.
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The child which overbalances itself in learning to walk is experimenting on the law of gravity.
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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.
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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.
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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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My principal work now lies in tracing out the exact nature and conditions of utility. It seems strange indeed that economists have not bestowed more minute attention on a subject which doubtless furnishes the true key to the problems of economics.
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.
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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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All classes of society are trade unionists at heart, and differ chiefly in the boldness, ability, and secrecy with which they pursue their respective interests.
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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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In any case I hold that there must arise a science of the development of economic forms and relations.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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There are a multitude of allied branches of knowledge connected with mans condition the relation of these to political economy is analogous to the connexion of mechanics, astronomy, optics, sound, heat, and every other branch more or less of physical science, with pure mathematics.
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 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