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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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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
Wants
Supplying
Least
Calculus
Men
Aims
Utility
Labour
Aim
Ordinary
Cost

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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.
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Property is only another name for monopoly.
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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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The child which overbalances itself in learning to walk is experimenting on the law of gravity.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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The difficulties of economics are mainly the difficulties of conceiving clearly and fully the conditions of utility.
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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.
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Repeated reflection and inquiry have led me to the somewhat novel opinion, that value depends entirely upon utility.
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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.
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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.
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By a commodity we shall understand any object, substance, action or service, which can afford pleasure or ward off pain.
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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.
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We shall never have a science of economics unless we learn to discern the operation of law even among the most perplexing complications and apparent interruptions.
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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.
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