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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

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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
Pain
Objects
Undoubtedly
Problem
Amount
Utmost
Wants
Satisfy
Greatest
Expense
Least
Desirable
Procure
Effort
Expenses
Maximize
Pleasure
Economics
Undesirable
Words
Ultimate
Calculus

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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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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.
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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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A little experience is worth much argument a few facts are better than any theory.
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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.
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Capital simply allows us to expend labour in advance.
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It is clear that economics, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science.
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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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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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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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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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A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish.
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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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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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It isrequisite from time to time to remind one generation of the experience which led a former generation to important legislative actions.
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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.
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A spade may be made of any size, and if the same number of strokes be made in the hour, the requisite exertion will vary nearly as the cube of the length of the blade.
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Property is only another name for monopoly.
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The calculus of utility aims at supplying the ordinary wants of man at the least cost of labour.
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